azza29

It's kind of sad really - the park spent all this money adding an inversion and it's still a terrible coaster. Still don't get why The Grizzly gets such a bad rap. Sure it's boring, but not really rough. Personally I will rank a boring coaster above one that tries to realign my back, even if I wouldn't go back for re-rides on either.

What's this about an entrance? I thought they were going to add a loop to Flying Turns.

When I heard that a Lego movie was in production I just dismissed it as probably a cartoon for five year olds. But having seen the trailer and hearing these early reviews I'm getting a little excited to check it out. Looks great!

"Coccyx crushing roughness" is a pretty good description of my ride on Roar last year. SFA should open an in-house chiropractor near the exit. For an additional fee, of course.

Wildcat was pretty decent early in the season last year, the park seemed to have re-tracked a lot the ride. I was actually surprised to see it rank so low, certainly giving better rides than SFA's Roar, for example.

I was surprised by a few of the results, namely how low Lightning Racer, Wooden Warrior and The Beast landed. But that may just reflect how many quality woodies are out there these days. Boulder Dash definitely deserves a spot in the top 15 but was running pretty rough this year, would be interested to see where this one ranks among "recent riders". Kind of amusing that "favourite steel" would have been ranked at #1, while in last year's steel coaster ballot "favourite woodie" came in at #1 there. Grass is always greener I guess...

^The car was pretty much the only good part of the stage version of that film.

^^Could work, I think. The movie has a pretty decent soundtrack to begin with.

A huge box was waiting when I got home today, packed with TPR awesomeness! Literally there was no space left in the box - thank you so much Robb & Elissa for sending this all the way to Australia! Big package from Florida, including mysterious green jewel! So much awesome stuff! Thanks TPR! Inventory: - red TPR bag - Ride Entertainment Group GTKW/IAAPA polo - white TPR t-shirt - 2008 Knotts Winter Coaster Solace t-shirt - B&M Dive Coaster brochure - GCI brochure - Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom map poster - thankyou note from Robb - Geauga Lake bum bag (all the cool kids have one of these, I imagine ) - TPR alarm clock - SFOG cup - Insane Coaster Wars magnet - TPR magnet clip - TPR coasting for kids badge - TPR Christmas ornament - TPR pen (I am set for life with all the TPR pens I have!) - Insane Coaster Wars lip balm (now have a lifetime supply of these too) - TPR cooling towel - TPR candy - rain poncho - Coaster Expedition Volume 12 - Coaster Expedition Volume 13 - TPR stickers - Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party stickers - Falcon's Fury wrist slap band - mystery DVD (that turned out to be Coaster Expedition Volume 7) - and the park maps, so many park maps - including some from parks I wasn't even aware of! (SF White Water Atlanta, Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise, Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, SFDK, Animal Kingdom, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, Epcot F&W Festival Passport, SFOT, Movieland Park, La Ronde, Caneva Aquapark, Hili Fun City, Nagashima, Universal Singapore, Holiday World, Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea, Disneyland, Wuhan Happy Valley, Mirabilandia, Magic Kingdom, Universal Orlando, Nasu Highland Park, Kings Island, Universal Halloween Horror Nights, Parque Espana, Yokohama Cosmoworld) And finally, an enigmatic plastic green jewel was in the box. That one has me puzzled. But no matter - thanks again TPR!

Current temperature in Melbourne is about 95 degrees. New housemate is coming from Canada next week where it's sitting at 14. He is in for a shock I think...

^The 80's one is great. Anything with ALF is great.

Goliath - SFMM

^If you're going to SFNE I'd recommend making pit-stops at Lake Compounce and Quassy too. Boulder Dash and Wooden Warrior are both fantastic coasters!

Or, if you can instinctively tell where the headbanging will be on an Arrow.

I've done the Welcome to Disneyland tour. For $25 it was ok, our guide was good and we got front-of-line access on Pirates and Muppets, as well as two Fastpasses the were valid all day. There was a weird family in our group that kept holding everyone up, turns out they thought they were getting unlimited front of line access for their $25, yeah right! While I certainly didn't feel ripped off I'd hesitate to recommend this one, and can definitely think of better ways to spend 3 hours at Disneyland.

Wow. This actually makes me kind of angry. Not at the kids, they are just impressionable and have been misled by a documentary that has fooled many. More at how out of hand this whole situation has become, and how gullible people are when they see something as a "good cause". www.malibutimes.com/news/article_01821248-83aa-11e3-8f1a-001a4bcf887a.html I took an online survey for Australia's Sea World earlier this week, one of the questions was about attitudes to animals in captivity. So clearly the whole Blackfish thing is affecting marine parks everywhere, even those that don't look after any orcas.

I'm the opposite - perfectly happy to remain ignorant until I get to ride the actual ride. I enjoy POVs of outdoor coasters but much prefer to wallow in ignorance when it comes to dark rides.

But on a slower day, you wouldn't need Fastpass that much anyway. So even though you could run around and get 6 or 7 under the old system, the amount of time saved wouldn't be that great. I think FP+ helps to smooth out some of the problems with the old Fastpass system - for example, if you had a dining reservation smack bang in the middle of your FP return time (or were planning to see a parade/fireworks), there would be no way to move the FP time around to suit your plans. But with FP+ it looks like that's pretty straightforward.

Outside of theme parks, I'm not a big fan of 3D either, and I can't think of a movie I've seen where it's actually made the film "better". It's a gimmick, and is fine for something like Transformers or Muppet-Vision, but anything longer than 20 minutes and I'd prefer a 2D version.

^Especially if it had a few extra show scenes to flesh out the story a little more. As much as I like the version at Disneyland, it always feels like it ends fairly abruptly.

Annual leave has been approved for November. Orlando trip is a go!

^^If you're initially looking for ideas of where to go, visit the TPR Park Index. You can sort parks by country and see how well TPR rates each park against others.

Wow! I can't wait to see one of these make its way to a park. Great to see even more innovation from S&S!

Twister at WnW Gold Coast - if you rode in the correct position (flat on back) it was basically a waterboarding simulation.

Lightning Racer - Hersheypark