azza29

I'd also like to see parks step up the enforcement of designated smoking areas. There is definitely a subset of the smoking population who do not give a damn about anyone else and will smoke wherever they like unless park security or a manager intervenes. This is especially the case when waiting in line - guests should not be put in a position where they have to either put up with someone's secondhand smoke, or risk an altercation by asking the smoker to put it out.

California: Tatsu New York: Cyclone Connecticut: Wooden Warrior Massachusetts: Bizarro Ohio: Maverick, Diamondback a close second Pennsylvania: Phoenix Maryland: Apocalypse Virginia: Intimidator 305 New Jersey: El Toro

Part Seventeen: Universal Studios Hollywood OK. Time to finally finish this trip report! Our last stop was Universal Hollywood, where we paid the big bucks for the VIP Tour. I'd done this once before and it is definitely the best way to see the park, especially for movie buffs like me. Our day started with the backlot tour, and I finally got to fulfill my dream of seeing the courthouse from Back to the Future up close (last time it was closed for filming... boo...). The VIP backlot tour includes everything on the regular tour (including the brilliant King Kong tunnel, sadly the dancing cars were closed), as well as plenty of time walking around various sets and stages, and a look into the incredible prop warehouse. This was followed by a fantastic buffet lunch (best food I've found in a theme park anywhere) before our guide took us to all of the attractions and shows, with the all-important front-of-line access and special seating included, of course. My thoughts on the rides/shows: - Transformers: this hadn't been open on my previous visit, and even though I kind of knew what to expect I was still blown away by just how great this ride is. The absolutely seamless integration of 3D screens and physical sets is very impressive (I even had to take my glasses off at one point to see whether some barrels that were knocked over were real or just on the screen!). Despite a posted wait time of 110 minutes our VIP passes had us waiting only 2-3 minutes, so we managed eight rides on this thing! - Revenge of the Mummy: I am a big fan of Premier coasters and this is no exception, although I've always felt this ride ends a little too quickly and could use another 300ft of track to finish it off. Still the designers did a good job with a small space. - Jurassic Park: man, this thing needs a refurb badly. T-Rex was covered by plastic wrap on my last visit and was just hanging there, lifeless, this time around. The drop and splash still work though, which I guess is the main thing. - The Simpsons: Best simulator ride anywhere. That is all. - Shrek 4D: yawn. Would have skipped this but it was part of the tour, presumably to give our guide a break. Maybe I'm a bit hard on this film, it's not bad but I saw it too many times at Movie World to really get excited about another viewing. And yes, it was exactly the same, from the pre-show right through to Donkey's algae-filled sneeze effect. - Animal Actors: not a bad show, although the theatre was definitely undergoing some sort of refurb. Lots of plywood, which I don't remember from the last time I saw it. - Special Effects Stage: for some reason I didn't see this on my last visit. Anyway, I thought this one was great, and it seemed like it had been regularly updated to include newer films, which is always a good sign for a theme park show. - Waterworld: the movie was awful but this could well be the best theme park show anywhere. So much so that my brother made us go back and see it again. In true theme park fashion the acting is terrible and the story might be a little loose, but the effects definitely make up for it - never get tired of explosions, and the plane jump is very impressive. Alright, pictures! After getting back to our hotel room from an encore Disneyland visit at 1am, we arrived bright and early for our 8:15am tour! At this point I'm geeking out (Back to the Future being the Greatest Film of All Time) about standing in the Hill Valley town square. OK so the courthouse used in the movie burnt down and this is a replacement, but who cares! Save the clocktower! More Back to the Future nerdery. We visited a set from a show I've never seen. This is not unlike my parents' living room, although they have a ceiling instead of studio lights. More backlot. Nothing is being filmed because it's June and all the actors are in Cabo. This is one of the better parts of the studio tour. The dry riverbed soon turns into... ...a tsunami of white water! I was hoping this would drown one of the more irritating tour participants, but no such luck. If you were desperate and a housewife, you might live somewhere like this. When Teri Hatcher gets into a rage on set, everyone stands back while she gets it out of her system. This was a very cool set, despite War of the Worlds being a generally terrible film. Fortunately, everyone survived and was able to climb down off the plane an orderly fashion. That's why there are no bodies lying around. You don't have to be making a movie to use the Universal costume department. For the right price, you too can have a sexy lime green unitard. The prop warehouse is really amazing to see. This is just the lamp section! Need some skulls or bones? You can even rent this guy for your up-and-coming sitcom. Back in the park, more nerdiness. Best movie car of all time, followed by the Ecto-1 and the Bluesmobile. Expect to see these popping up at Best Buy any day now. The 'NBC Universal Experience' also had some stuff from other films, including a set from the magnificent and underrated stop-motion animated film Paranorman. So, go see it. The Simpsons Ride is great, and captures the humour of the show perfectly. Every time I ride I pick up new jokes I missed the last time. I wonder how long until The Simpsons Ride shows up in Tapped Out? It was pretty busy on the lower lot, but the buff Mummy stilt walker was keeping everyone entertained. See that 50 minute wait? More like a walk-on, thanks to our VIP passes. I'm sure we missed a pre-show of some sort, but with a zero wait time I really didn't care. Jurassic Park! Broken dinosaurs aside, this is a superb flume ride. Wet wet wet. Also very overexposed. The perils of using the 'auto' setting on your camera, kids. Time to check out the new hotness! Well, new to me anyway. Optimus Prime was available for photo ops today. Seriously how cool are these in-park characters? And they talk! Megatron was especially funny to watch. Bumblebee can be a bit of a prima donna though. I think this is the happiest I've ever been to have a front-of-line pass. VIP tour includes unlimited trips through the special queue, and the longest we waited was about 5 minutes. Hooray for jumping planes and fireworks! 'Splosions make me happy. And with that it was time to end our day at Universal and head to Citywalk for a screening of the ultimately disappointing Man of Steel. Obligatory globe photo with lens flare to round out the report. I can't wait to head back once Harry Potter West is in, this park will head to a completely new level! So the final tally for the six-week trip was 150 coasters at 22 parks. This includes 114 steel, 36 wooden, 7 boomerangs, 7 wild mice and 3 SLCs. We also drove 3000 miles, rode 15 log flumes, and incredibly only missed two credits because of closed rides! Thankyou to everyone who has taken the time to read through this trip report, it's been a lot of fun putting it together. I'm now looking forward to my next adventure, which thankfully will require a lot less planning effort on my part, which will be the Scandi trip in June!

Thanks for a great trip report. Looking forward to checking the Hong Kong parks out in June!

$99 is a bit pricey, but who buys a single-day ticket to Disney World anyway?

^I can see this working in Vegas, mainly because visitors tend to have fairly open wallets in that city. Perhaps a 175 foot wheel in DC has a better business case than the 400 foot one in Melbourne, but I still don't think these things will get much in the way of repeat business.

175 feet isn't terribly high (the one down here is almost 400ft and it seems small), although I guess in the right spot it could provide some decent views. Still, I really do not understand the appeal of these things, or how they could possibly make money.

Heck, they went all the way to Australia to film Tower of Terror when Magic Mountain has almost the exact same ride! So I wouldn't assume any decent-sized international parks are out of contention.

^^I don't think I've ever been to a park where "show up early" was a bad strategy!

I bought a Platinum Pass last year, activated at Knotts and no problems using it at CGA, KI, KD, Dorney and CP, got all the early entry (where offered), discounts, and other perks at every single park. The pass itself didn't designate any particular "home park", and just had the Cedar Fair logo on it. So you should be fine.

Count me as another Premier coaster fan. Sky Rocket's launch is surprisingly intense, and there's even a little airtime in the back seat. Even the Backlot Stunt Coasters are fun in their own way (and great family coasters), especially when all the effects are working.

^^Oh, good point about Smiler being Gerstlauer. Duh. Well there goes that theory.

I'm not convinced it's Sochi or Hong Kong. Based on flights that were heading out of Amsterdam airport, from terminal D at the time of Robb's posting they have arrived in the UK, either Heathrow or London City airport (although leaning towards Heathrow as that flight was a Delta codeshare). If the UK is the final stop perhaps Alton Towers is the destination? Mainly basing this on the fact that the park has a mine train coaster. El Loco pic might have been a clue for Flamingoland but they are shut this time of year. That picture of Goliath could be a clue that they are checking out a new Intamin ride, which makes me think Smiler? That said, there are a ton of clues I can't fit in this theory so it's still basically a mildly informed guess...

I was getting a little concerned that the Aussies were about to go home empty-handed. But we won a silver! Hooray!

I really like the "book three in advance and then more once those are used" approach. Can see this working really well on both busy and slow days. Looking forward to trying it out in person later in the year.

Not a coaster, but I've always thought a river rapids dark ride would be fun.

This I don't understand. If someone is a local. presumably they're more likely to visit a park for just a few hours at a time, possibly later in the day after work/school. Under the old system they could probably only get one FP for, say, a 3-4 hour evening visit, depending on what is left at the end of the day. But with FP+ they can schedule three confirmed FP+ entries (possibly one every hour they're in the park), book these ahead of time, and plan around any dining reservations or shows/parades. Sounds like a great deal! Sure it's an adjustment, but I can't see someone genuinely being "worse off" with FP+.

The Muppets. They deserve better than Muppet-vision. Also Ghostbusters seems like the perfect fodder for a shooting dark ride.

^Haha. I work for an organisation where IE6 compatibility is still important. Like it's 2003 or something...

I quite enjoy the winter games, not that Australia is much of a contender. This is how we won our first winter gold, in 2002 (skip to 1:27): [youtu_be]http://youtu.be/fAADWfJO2qM[/youtu_be]

New trains look good. The vest-style seats are definitely more comfortable but, at least for me, a little more restrictive. I fit fine in a regular B&M seat but had to use the "big boy" row on Gatekeeper. I'm sure the park will put a test seat out the front though.

Thanks for the info. I understand why logistically it doesn't work to do re-rides on Scooby and Superman. Arkham is the main one that gets me - mainly because the way the park operates the ride (not letting guests organise themselves behind air gates, just one ride op checking restraints, ride area is cleared before next group are allowed to line up behind gates) makes for very slow operations.

This annoys me too - it's probably park policy but the employees at Movie World seem to enjoy telling guests that they need to go all the way around to ride again. Really irritating on a ride like Arkham Asylum, where one cycle takes about ten minutes because the park has found the slowest possible way to operate an SLC.

The Takis ads are about as close as Six Flags come to consistent theming.

I didn't think it was *that* bad, and the "underwater" section is a fun gimmick, not that you really notice it when you're on the ride!