azza29

I like the Cedar Fair parks in general, but to rank those I've been to: 1. Cedar Point 2. Knotts 3. Kings Dominion 4. Kings Island 5. California's Great America 6. Dorney Park My highest ranked Six Flags park would be Great Adventure, probably coming in between Kings Island and CGA.

At least selfie stick owners provide amusement... So much wrong.

Free donuts today just for completing a few quick tasks, easy!

30 donuts! I've had a good run with this game lately, my last scratchie paid out 100 donuts too.

Locally, Virgin Australia. Always had good experiences with these guys, both on domestic flights and to and from LA. In the US I tend to fly Southwest. Free bags and inexpensive airfares are a win, and I typically shell out for the early-bird check-in option too.

Saw a local independent production of Avenue Q on the weekend, running as part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Tiny shoebox theatre but the overall show was superb - easily as good as the off-Broadway production, albeit with a lower budget. Avenue Q is definitely one of the more underrated modern musicals, more than just "Sesame Street for adults". The cast was excellent, and as I left the theatre there were quite a few audience members humming along to "the internet is for porn..."

Managed to catch a few movies lately: Cinderella - agree with the praise for this one. Excellent adaptation of a classic, with the potential to be as timeless as the animated film. Cate Blanchett a definite standout as the stepmother, although I thought Helena Bonham Carter was nicely reserved in her portrayal of the fairy godmother. A Most Violent Year - liked this more that I'd expected. Great slow burn of a movie that doesn't play down to the audience at all. Selma - good movie, although perhaps a little paint by numbers in spots. David Oyelowo should have received an Oscar nomination at least for his performance. Definitely made me think that even though there's more work to be done, racial attitudes have changed for the better tremendously in the last fifty years. Inherent Vice - pretty good film. Plot is tricky to follow and the movie would probably benefit from editing out 20 minutes of the more soporific scenes. That said the dialogue is very well written and there are some great characters. Will make you feel like you're stoned without having to actually be so. Chappie - it's not District 9, but still a decent movie. Easy to forget the robot is CGI, and the overall story is very well done. But sadly the robot is the only character that exhibits any growth throughout the film, and everyone else is far too one-note to be believable. There are also a number of alarmingly bad haircuts, not least Hugh Jackman's mullet.

Riders "rescued" - hmm, not sure if I'd count getting out on the brake run as a rescue. Slow news day in Orlando, I guess.

Great photos - I definitely plan to check this place out if I'm ever in Abu Dhabi.

Good move, TSMM is always one of those rides I want to go and re-ride straight away but the queues usually don't allow that. I'll be interested to see how much of a wait time reduction we see with the extra track. That ride is still going to remain incredibly popular with families as there isn't a lot else for younger kids to do at DHS outside of the shows.

1. Do you have your videos set to auto-play on your: a. desktop computer and/or b. mobile device? (or if you don't know, just tell us if the videos auto-play or not in your newsfeed.) Nope. I'm always annoyed at news sites that autoplay their videos. 2. Do you regularly "share" content from Facebook "page" (like the TPR page) to your own personal Facebook page? And have you shared something from the TPR page? Rarely. I've only done this when I've been in the video. I've shared a few anti-Blackfish articles too, as I feel like SeaWorld has been unfairly treated in that instance. 3. What kind of content are you most likely to share? (Videos, Photos, News Stories, etc?) Videos, maybe photos. I don't share much often because almost all of my friends who I would consider theme park fans already follow TPR, the rest of my friends could probably care less about rollercoasters. 4. How long on average do you watch a video posted to Facebook for? Do you watch the entire video? First 30 seconds? Until you get bored? I don't typically watch videos posted to Facebook. Usually I'll see TPR content via Twitter or in my Youtube feed. 5. How important are "video thumbnails" to you? (the image you see with the > Play icon before you click to watch a video) Not important. 6. What do you like/dislike about Facebook? What features do you use the most and which ones annoy you? I mostly use Facebook for Messenger and to see friends' updates. I tend to use Twitter to get my theme park fix, as I find it's a better platform for news-style updates. I think my least favourite thing on Facebook is clickbait links - "you won't believe what Disney is doing in Orlando!" - that seem to be everywhere, although I don't recall TPR doing this. 7. Is there anything that TPR does or doesn't do on Facebook that you think we should be doing more/less of? Some of the discussions can be amusing. I like seeing trip/construction reports featured. I'm not a fan of the "who wishes they were at xxx park right now?" style of post, but that's a minor quibble. Only suggestion would be a little more balance between Orlando and rest-of-the-world content. You touched on this in response to an earlier post - I'll add that there's already a ton of Disney fansites out there, and what has always made TPR unique is the great coverage of parks that aren't Disney or Universal. While I enjoy TPR's spin on the Disney stuff, it's possible to have too much Frozen/Newsies/Big Hero 6 coverage. But overall I think you're using the social media platforms very effectively, Robb. Great job!

^It's a Kumbak train, and from what I can gather the only decent one that company has produced to date. It's nice to be able to ride an SLC without getting a concussion, even better when the onboard audio is working!

Definitely one of the best flat rides out there, so much fun!

I always looked forward to the Pirates clip because it had a good use of pyro. Would like to see more of that for sure. The lasers were a bit of a bust unless you were right at the front. The Frozen WoC was particularly bad though, basically just like watching someone skip to each song on the DVD. I didn't mind the film but it would've been good to see something a bit more creative.

Great pics again. The loose articles policy on Superman is pretty draconian, although they've relaxed it a bit on Green Lantern. Was Arkham Asylum open when you were there? Despite being an SLC, it's been decent since the new trains went on.

Spaceship Earth makes me queasy every time. Apart from that I'm good with pretty much anything.

Just got around to watching both this and the first one. Very much enjoying the random collection of ride videos - thanks Robb!

Great pics, and I agree our colourful notes and giant coins do seem they belong in a board game. Look forward to reading the rest of this report!

I'm looking forward to riding Back to the Future in June, hopefully it stays open that long! Stupid minions...

Not that I get to the Six Flags parks all that often, but my SFMM experience was better this year than in the last one. I'd say 90% of this came down to choosing a better day to visit, where it was less crowded.

Thanks for the update, Caesar. I liked the pictures of footers and dirt.

I'd have to go with Xcelerator on this one.

^Agree with that one. They are all pretty good, and Disneyland is my pick, very closely followed by Epcot. I'm sure DisneySea will trump them both though!

Asia: Tokyo Disneyland Universal Japan Nagashima Spa Land Fuji-Q Europe: Europa Park Heide Park De Efteling Disneyland Paris Holiday Park Alton Towers Thorpe Park Blackpool Pleasure Beach North America: Dollywood Holiday World SFoT SFFT Carowinds Silver Dollar City Huh. Writing this list made me realise just how many I've ticked off in the last few years, definitely need to plan a few more trips to Europe though!

^I like how that photo shows all of the new "lands" under construction on the left hand side of the park. HKDL must have been tiny when it opened!