Blue Turbo

New update, Holiday World Our next stop on the trip was to Santa Claus, Indiana to check out Holiday World. We visited just days after the end of the 66 Days at Sea campaign for Thunderbird. The park even created a hashtag on Twitter for us, #66MinutesOfSleepTour! Arriving at the park we had no idea what to expect because our schedule for the day was kept a secret. We started the day with a walk back through Raven and Legend to reach the Thanksgiving section of the park where we were the first people in line for The Voyage. I spent some time exploring the park before it was time for lunch which included a Q&A session! We then went on a construction tour of Thunderbird, which at the time of our visit just some footers and the flywheel building. This tour also offered great views of The Voyage. My group spent the rest of the afternoon at the fantastic water park, Splashin Safari'. It was a great way to relax after the couple of long day we had been having. For dinner, we of course had the Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. After that was the highlight of the New Hotness Tour, water-coaster ERT! Holiday World was two ProSlide hydromagnetic coasters and they are nuts. Wildebeest seats four people in a line and focuses on crazy hills. When sitting in the front seat, the only reason I stayed inside of the raft was the fact that I was holding onto the handles with all of my strength. There is so much airtime that once you reach the top of the lift, you spend more time out of your seat than in it! Mammoth is much larger in scale and has 6-seater circular rafts. So now when you are flying over the hills you are also spinning. There is just something not right about feeling the entirety of those giant rafts lifting off of the slide. During the day the slides can get lines that are hours long, but during ERT I got 5 rides on Wildebeest and 3 on Mammoth, all withing an hour! After settling down from the craziness and changing, we headed to Holiday World for coaster ERT. They opened up the three woodies for us and we all had a great time. Overall, I had a fantastic time at Holiday World and am looking forward to heading back there in the future to check out Thunderbird. Most of the pictures I have from that day are from the walk backs as I spent a lot of time in the water park and had my back in the locker most the day, but here they are anyway: Cool lanyards with the day's schedule, complete with Holiday World humor The morning was very humid, but it makes for some menacing photos The group making our way through the trees Tunnel! You don't get this view very often I love how much of The Raven is hidden away in the woods. It makes the night rides more exciting The Raven was definitely my favorite of the park, and this turn over the water is beautiful Nice view of The Legend. A little heavy of the laterals for my taste, but still fun A nice sight to see this early in the morning Who doesn't love an elderly woman holding a gun? Poor Merlin, his castle got demoted to being bathrooms. Loved the details inside The Raven's station Lunch time! Time for the walk back, which leads to getting coaster nerds in your nerdy coaster shots. Airtime! Some of the footers for the overbanked turn A look at where the loop will be as it crosses over The Voyage I have mixed feelings about The Voyage. The outward airtime hills and the spaghetti bowl are great, but the twistiness after the triple-down just beat me up. I liked it, but it is not a ride that I could do more than a couple times a visit People waving at the nerds on a construction tour Prepare to take the tunnel! Where the inline roll will be There it is goes into the trees Some of the wacky banking during the spaghetti bowl Entering the tunnel for the trip back There is now a station in this area A look back at the inline roll Here are what make the "almonds" everyone was obsessed with before the reveal. The work that had been done on the station This building houses the flywheel The first Voyage corssover Some footers being made. There had been some bad rain the previous day, so the whole area was wet and muddy We were all amazed at how close these footers were to Hyena Falls The park gave us all these magnets, and Thunderbird sports cups (I don't have a picture of the cup) I bought this cool towel which was very useful at the water park. Thanks for reading and next time, Indiana Beach

^^$5 sent your way Chuck!

Decided to participate for the first time this year!! I will be at Knott's, this is so exciting. Donation Page

Thank you all for reading and commenting, now... Kentucky Kingdom and Beech Bend After the crazy Banshee Bash, it was an early morning to drive down to Kentucky and hit up all of the currently operating credits. The first stop of the day was the newly reopened Kentucky Kingdom. TPR was doing some filming for the park so we were there before the park opened to get some rides on Lightning Run and Thunder Run so Robb could get footage. But before that, Ed Hart met with the group and asked us for our opinions one how the park should move forward. It was really great to see him take interest in what enthusiasts had to day. From there we had some great rides on both Thunder Run and Lightning Run. After having some time to explore once the park opened we had a fantastic lunch of fried chicken (which became the theme of the day). As the day went on it started to get rather hot out and we sought out shelter. While hanging out in one of the restaurants, we had an interesting encounter with a local. He kept asking Caroline odd questions about England. She was very nice about it but the rest of us were just trying to hold in our laughter. For the rest of the day our response to anything strange was "because Kentucky", and it made perfect sense after that. We then got back onto the bus and headed out to the middle of nowhere to go to Beech Bend. The park feels more like a permanent fair, but they have one of the best GCI woodies I've been one. After getting a few of the smaller credits of the park we had dinner, which was more fried chicken. The park then gave out really random prizes to a few people and we all got small souvenirs. After that we explored more of what the park had to offer before our ERT session, and what an ERT session it was. We had Kentucky Rumbler for about an hour and a half and I don't even know how many rides I got on it. There was a couple "fat trains" which were very entertaining. At one point it was raining and you could see the lightning in the distance as you were flying along the track. Overall it was a really fun day. Kentucky Kingdom was definitely off to a great start, and with all the new additions coming it should grow rather nicely. Beech Bend was a very interesting way to spend a couple of hours and I will not forget that ERT session. Now, pictures: We were greeted by this fun ad, and spoilers, Lightning Run does have great airtime! The giant ferris wheel that offers great views of the park An overview of the waterpark with what is now T3 in the background. There were several people that tried to convince Ed to just remove it Some of the new slides that opened as part of the new expansion to the water park This is somehow the only picture of Thunder Run I have. The ride is a lot of fun with some suppressing moments of airtime Yes I am a credit whore and rode the roller skater I enjoyed both the fact that this carousel had a unicorn on it and the lion's facial expression I will never understand the Larson/ARM drop towers as they seem to defy physics. They are awesome though, and even better when you get someone that doesn't like drop towers to ride them Time for lunch! It's a shame we never found out what fourth company down was Now for a ton of pictures of Lightning Run because it is awesome! Look at all of those smiling faces Some overbanked goodness This picture came out really neat and nicely shows how twisty the ride is Lightning Run and flyers in the same picture, skill! This drop is incredible. It might not be very tall, but has a great feeling to it Hairtime. This ride has so much airtime at the beginning and end and the twisty section is really forceful The only problem I had were that the seats had an awkward bulge on the back that felt weird. Also, after riding it multiple times I had bruises on my shins from the restraints, but the ride is so great that it makes up for that Goodbye to Kentucky Kindgom. Man this ride is really photogenic Our first stop at Beech Bend was the kiddie credit. The ride op informed us of his many "Trust me I'm an engineer" shirts that he got from school I was reassured of that I was definitely in safe hands Who doesn't love a spinning wild mouse Some TPR members getting in the credit Two trains in one shot and both facing the camera, I am amazing A swinging ship, but this is not an ordinary swinging ship... It was once at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch! This ride a nice LED light package on it I just love how happy Laura looks in this picture This was a fun little log ride. I took this after the park closed, that is why the logs are all stacked up Now for Kentucky Rumbler, a fantastic GCI woodie! It was hard to take pictures as it was dark and this ride is FAST It has some great moments of GCI airtime and was a great end to the day I bought this obnoxious shirt "because Kentucky" and Beech Bend gave us all these neat little carabiners. Thanks for reading and next time, Holiday World

Great report! I've only been once before, and it several years ago, but I had a great time and would definitely recommend it as well.

What kind of weirdo gets scared on Windseekers? Not me, that's for sure. I know, they are the worst. It would have been hilarious to seem them on Drop Tower thought, but they wouldn't go on it.

Sorry for the really long delay between updates. I didn't have access to the pictures over break and the start of the semester was too crazy to have time to sit down and put everything together for an update, but now... The Banshee Bash, Kings Island The official first day of the Mini New Hotness Tour was a big one, the Banshee Bash at Kings Island. Over 200 people from around the country and beyond came to check out the new hotness of Banshee. The park took out all of the stops for the event, and were promoting the heck out of it. There was a big post on their website and there was even a story on the event on the local news which we saw while we were in the lobby of the hotel! It is very smart of the park to make a big deal of the fact there are people traveling from all over the world to come to the park. The event itself was incredible, lasting 16 hours! The morning started with some ERT on Bat, Banshee, and their giant Frisbee Delirium. We then moved over to get some rides in on Diamondback. The park offered some ERT over at the waterpark, but I didn't have my swimsuit with me that day. After checking out the rest of the park we had a lunch with some guest speakers. After lunch the park took us behind the scenes of Banshee, Beast, and Diamondback were I got incredible shots of all of them. We were then free to roam the park again during which my group and I had an interesting experience at the Subway in the park. The girls in front of us seemed like they had never ordered a sandwich before. They kept changing their minds about what they wanted and the worker was force to throw away about two sandwiches worth of meat in the process. I give props to the worker for dealing with them because I know I wouldn't have had the patience for that. That adventure leads us to Cirque Imagine, the parks acrobatic/cirque de soleil-esque show, which we had reserved seats for as part of the Banshee Bash. The show was actually pretty good and I was rather impressed by it. Afterwards, we had a Q&A session with the cast which was very neat. The park also gave us great seats for the fireworks show in the restaurant above the front entrance. While the GP left the park we waited for the most anticipated part of the event, night ERT! First up was Banshee and Diamondback in which I got plenty of rides in on both. The night ended with a hour of ERT on Beast, which is just an incredible experience at night. Caroline and I were really lucky and managed to get a front row ride on the last train of the night! Overall, it was a fantastic day. I really enjoyed the park itself and all the extras that were thrown in for the event were and added bonus. Now onto the pictures... The schedule for the day came in lanyard form I thought we were in Ohio, how did we end up in Vegas? The reason we are all here. I was pleasantly surprised by Banshee, although it is not as intense as Montu, it still packs a punch and is incredibly fun But anyone who complains about it rattling needs to pipe down. The only time there was a slight rattle was at the bottom of the batwing/pretzel, and it doesn't affect the ride at all The first drop is fantastic. The twist is very sharp and you get slightly whipped around it, especially in the back Also, the crew was fantastic. During ERT there were periods where the train was secure but they had to wait for the previous train to be far enough along before dispatching. One time we actually stopped on the lift for a second to wait for the block to clear I forget to change my shutter speed for these pictures, but it makes them look really cool and show the sense of speed the ride has Zero-G into the distance This was my first time on a giant frisbee and I really enjoyed it! These signs were up all over the park, and my friend pointed out the Banshee's cleavage and now that is all I can see in that sign Make the pain stop! Beast station. While the ride itself isn't that special, it turns into an incredible experience flying through the trees at night. All of the coaster nerds in aww at all of the wood! [insert obligatory shot of first drop here] The train beginning to descend after the second lift hill. Speed of Beast Even from behind the scenes, most of the layout is still hidden among the trees Artsy distant shot of Diamondback's first drop Wow, I was accidentally being very artsy with these photos More photos that have too slow of a shutter speed because I fail at photography A wild train has appeared Went up the Eiffel tower to get some aerial shots of the park. Those that followed the construction of Banshee will be very familiar with this angle. Bat is there in the background, and I was blown away by it. Such a different experience from Iron Dragon which I had been on a few day priors, and this is a very good thing The most intense part of the ride, and from this view I could see how incredible the crew was, no double stacking! An overview of Planet Snoopy I was not prepared for that water jet (Photo credit: Andy Hatzos-The Great Zo) Diamondback- two trains and water splash in the same photo. Skill! Firehawk and Flight of Fear. Firehawk was surprisingly good. Flight of Fear on the other hand was painful and the only enjoyable part of my ride on it was some random guy in back of me singing Iggy Azalea and ironically singing "I'm in the fastlane" right after we came to a stop on the mid course brakes Racer and Windseeker. I don't find Windseekers that exciting but they do offer some good views of the park. However, they are enjoyable when you ride them with someone who doesn't like heights Racer was really fun with some good moments of airtime. Ending up riding it around three or four times throughout the day Drop Tower, while not my favorite drop tower, it was still a lot of fun with a great view of Banshee. It is a cool feeling to stand near it when it drop for the wind that gets kicked off of it Vortex, which looks very pretty, is a great way to get a headache Invertigo which was better than a normal boomerang, and the theater for Cirque Imagine Is that the most iconic thing from the 80s? Cool shirt I got that has the logos of all the major coasters in 8bit graphics on the back and the park logo on the front I will end this long overdue update with the Banshee sign at night surrounded by fog and neat lighting. Next time (and hopefully in a more timely manner) Kentucky, all of it.

These slides are looking great, I will definitely have to head back the park this summer, especially after the great time I had last year

^If you are late it keeps your reservation for that ride until you ride it or cancel it. You cannot reserve multiple rides, but you can book you next ride once you have checked in for the ride and merged with the regular queue. Many times by the time you ride and then walk to the next ride your reservation with be up, that is if you are using the Gold or Platinum

So excited for my cruise on Quantum on Saturday!!!

It's camouflaged

^They played the Reveille bugle call over the loudspeakers to wake everyone up

There is very little interaction on it. I see posts on there with thousands of views but they have less than five or six comments on them.

I don't know if he told the story or not, but I didn't hear it

Sorry for the delay with this update but I have been very busy will finals just around the corner, and now... Bonus Park Fun: Coney Island and Stricker's Grove After spending a few days with my sister in Cleveland, it was time to head down to Cincinnati for the start of what turned out the be the highlight of my summer, the Mini New Hotness and Mini East Coast Tours. As it was my first trip with TPR, I didn't really know what to expect but was super excited. I headed to the airport to meet up with those doing the Coney Island bonus. Coney Island was an interesting little park and a great way to start the trip. Everyone headed straight to the only credit of the park, the coaster formerly knows as the Pepsi Python, Python. It is a simple Galaxi coaster, but it was quite fun. After lunch, we checked out the flat rides the park has to offer. As I have not been to very many classic amusement parks, a lot of the flats were new to me. I had a lot of fun getting to know the people on the trip and experiencing some new rides. After the few hours at Coney Island, we heading back to the airport to pick up the rest of the group, and were off to dinner, or so we thought. I thought we were going to be eating close to the hotel/Kings Island, which I knew was not very far from the airport since I passed it on my way in. The drive seemed to be taking longer than it should have, and that is when people started putting two and two together. When the bus finally stopped, we were at Stricker's Grove. This park is very interesting as it is only open to the public two days out of the year, the rest of the time it is able to be rented for private events. The day we were there was not a public day, in fact there was a church group there, but thanks to a donation to the church by Robb and Elissa, they agreed to let us come to the park for an hour to get the credits. Awesome! The park has two wooden coasters, Tornado and Teddy Bear, and Teddy Bear beat out Banshee for being my 100th credit. The park itself was small, but cozy and the coasters were fun. Overall, the day was a great bonus start to what will be a fantastic trip and get some somewhat hard to get credits. First things first, where is the food going to be, and why isn't it in the Cuddle Up? Wow, Oz has sure let itself go The Euro Bungy, it sadly doesn't allow flips One of the classic attractions at Coney Island First credit of the trip, Python That first drop was actually quite nerve wracking Python before the helix of death One of the midways with a Tilt a Whirl and Moser drop ride, The Scream Machine, which was rather fun The Rock-O-Plane was a great time, but I couldn't quite the hang of them to get multiple flips Ah, the ferris wheel, which was located right next to a country show. Now I don't normally mind country music, but this was entertainingly bad country music. Think of the most stereotypical country music you can and than make it even more stereotypical and with bad singing A view of the pool which has couple of water slides This here is the Tempest. The ride itself was memorable as I was sliding back and forth crashing into the seat dividers, but the breaks on the ride would not hold so it took the operator almost ten minutes to load the ride for us an and almost twenty to get us off afterwards We leave Coney Island with a picture of this very nice path through the trees Now to Stricker's Grove with a look at the two coasters and the mini golf Kiddie turtle ride Are they surprised by how excited grown adults are to ride two family wooden coasters? A look a the Tornado, which actually had a few good moments of airtime The main area of the park with the two coasters and flying scooters Tornado lift hill and a super roundup NERD! The train for Teddy Bear is quite cute, but can we take a moment to appreciate the face the kid in the front is making Here is my failed attempt to take a picture of the park sign with my phone on a moving bus You know you are with TPR when your first dinner is at Carrabba's

Twister is fun, but it doesn't have the amazing airtime that Phoenix does. I could ride Phoenix over and over again and it would still be amazing.

This has me so excited for my cruise on the Quantum! Can January get here sooner?

^^^Excited to hear how it is as I will be going on it in January!

Thank you everyone for your interest in the report! And now... The Kalahari Resort, Sandusky OH After a great time at Cedar Point, we headed to the Kalahari Resort, which is about a twenty minute drive. This was actually my second time visiting the Kalahari, but last time we were there a lot of the slides were closed so this was pretty much a new experience for me. The resort is a hotel with a large indoor waterpark and an outdoor pool and activities. The indoor waterpark is very large a features a wave pool, lazy river, two flow riders, a kiddie play structure, a body bowl, a Behemoth bowl, mat racers, several tube slides, several family raft slides, a couple body slides, and a conveyer belt water coaster. The outside has a pool, kiddie structure, small zipline course, ropes course, rock wall, and a small zoo where you can feed the animals. There is also an arcade, black light mini golf, and big play structure inside. The waterpark was a lot of fun especially since everything was open, but I think my mom had an even better time than I did. She normally doesn't go on many rides. Her roller coaster limit is the Vekoma roller skater at SFGAm. I got her to go on the family raft slides because she will go on those when we go to waterparks and she liked them. I somehow convinced her to go on the Behemoth Bowl, she then made me go on it about ten more times after that, so it's safe to say that she enjoyed it. Then, after ever more convincing I got her to go on the water coaster which she ending up liking and riding a few more times. Overall, the Kalahari was a great way to spend a couple days, but I wouldn't have gone if I wasn't already in the area. If you are in the area I would recommend checking it out, especially since the waterpark is open to the public. Now, pictures: The wave pool, and while it is not the biggest, it is still fun The mat racing slides, with four lanes The two Proslide bowls were a lot of fun Here you can see the two other slide complexes where most of the slides are located The orange slide is the water coaster. It is one of the conveyer belt powered ones, and it had a couple of pops of airtime The kiddie structure features a couple of small slides, and of course a water bucket The zipline course is just a small square. The resort was not very busy when we were there, but there was a 45 minute wait for the zipline, definitely not worth it. The outdoor pool and the zipline in action. This little cafe had a really nice variety of food and was actually very good. Found this in the gift shop. I've always wanted nature to come in tube form. The black light mini golf even has a shark that eats your ball in it. It also has an elephant who doesn't appear to have a body. The final hole has the surfer who can apparently part water. Just what every "zoo" needs, rabbits These are Barbary Sheep apparently, I don't know what else to day about them. There is so much judgement radiating from this alpaca. The one on the right is either entranced by the food, or mentally scarred. So much sass. Hello random porcupine and hello fence ruining my shot. "Please take me with you." Sorry, didn't mean to disturb you, moving on. Don't know what is bird is, but it has a sweet mohawk. I just love zebras, and I don't know why. "What are you looking at?" So these Nilgai are employees, ok. Just a bunch of kangaroos being lazy. They also have pony rides. I don't know which I like better, the weird pony names, or the fact that they crossed out the price. This camel thanks you for reading. Stay tuned for the start of the Mini New Hotness tour with bonus parks!

I would never have seen this coming. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds

This. I understand that the park is trying to counteract the bad press by promoting their conservation and research efforts, put they won't be able to continue if the parks don't do well. There are very few people that animal rights activists, most people don't care about it, but those few are very loud. SeaWorld does some great things, heck most people have never seen an orca before going to the park, but they are a theme park and need to focus on that because that is what is going to bring the guests in, not rescuing another seal.

Can't wait to check out the park again. I had a great time when I went during the summer and am dying to go back

This is so exciting and the ship looks amazing

Very interesting to see how each coaster differs in how they remove the trains

^Thanks. I might do a ranking in future updates, but I didn't want to do one for this one as it focuses on the event