Homey G.

No way, Georgia Cycle is the best coaster ev!

Ok, glad you had fun, but what was the part that was better than photos you promised?? Kinda like watching a Tim Burton Batman film.

If you quote Styx and you're not talking about the river. You're old. I should know.

Ride in the first row of the last train on Ninja for the best possible ride. The last row is much better than the front of the train, but the row right in front of it is a touch smoother.

I'll have to get back with you whenever I have nothing else left in my life and all I have to fall back on is roller coasters. In the meantime... wait here. 8)

Guy said "Oh, and I just got some from my incredibly HOT wife" I'll be the judge of that 8)

OMG Wes is a genius. Baaa to the mf'n ha! Too bad sucky Elissa will win! Shenanigans! :shock:

By the way, I'm the BTK killer and also kidnapped the girl in Aruba. Not like anyone is seeing or reading this TR. Haha.

^ OMG! BAHAHAHA to your sig!

^ Your hair kicks ass.

LOL! It wasn't THAT bad, but I sure coulda used more warning than I got for it. If I decide to do a video segment for Adventureland, I'll have to remember to put in the part where we filmed a mechanic actually doing work ON the train for Dragon from underneath the track while the train was in MOTION! :shock:

CFreak, thanks.. SOMEONE shoulda warned us for sure! Gregg, yeah we totally went back that way. Sometimes shortcuts work 8) , sometimes they don't.

Part 4 August 8th, 2005 "Get it together, Grouch" - Dave Chappelle Hmmmm. Ok, welcome back. Thanks for joining us. Now let's see here. How do you make what transpired for 12 hours sound exciting. I guess you just throw it out there and see what bites. Here goes. We got up from Branson, Missouri and I was suddenly jealous of my suitcase which was happily staying behind in the hotel room while it's stupid owner and his bestest coaster buddy did their stupid thing and drove to Arkansas and back in a day. We snogged some continental breakfast and were out the do'ah by 8:45. For those of you who have stuck it out through my mindless TRs and are really bored at work, do something for me really quick... Go to Mapquest and click on driving directions (I'd link you from my TR, but I'm currently on the interstate and wireless LAN at this point is not exactly doable). Then type in Branson Missouri to Hot Springs, Arkansas. It says something like 4 and a half hours. We did not, mind you, go by way of Little Rock. Look at the little map thingy there. See the interstate? Yeah us either. We were going over the K2 mountains, or at least it's little brother. Now, thus far, mapquest has overshot us by an hour, but we haven't been going through mountains. Kris chose to go directly over the top, sometimes not even on a road. Mapquest ended up being right. So imagine how fatigued you are to travel through winding mountain roads going to a park that you're marginally excited about in the first place. Magic Springs, Arkansas isn't exactly the first 100 places coaster enthusiasts talk about, but yet, it is one of those places that you feel like if you're EVER gonna hit, you need to do it while you're reasonably close. Now, keep in mind, reasonably close is certainly a relative term. 4.5 hours isn't a total hike, unless it's just one way, and you're going to be spending the night in the exact same place you just spent the night before. Yeah, if I ever claimed to NOT be an enthusiast, I really can't much anymore. While I was miserable on the trip, on the way, we went by the old Dog Patch park. I always get sad seeing things like this. There was a sign out before the entrance that said "If you want to see this open again, honk twice". From the barracaded entrance, we could see a Rampage water slide and several old buildings that were overgrown with weeds and trees. I snapped a few pictures and we got back on our way. I hate that feeling you get knowing something that was designed to make me people happy is gone. That said, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Dog Patch would be quite the bitch to get to. Off we go, and a few mountainous hours later, and almost right what Mapquest said, the bright yellow of Gauntlet said it's hello to us. Yay. MAGIC SPRINGS & CRYSTAL FALLS Hot Springs, Arkansas Eric Griswold rating system again in place -3 to +5 with 0 being positive, but only slightly *Sigh* 5 credits here. Let's get em and get on about our business. Traveling through the town of Hot Springs, my eagle eye spotted a sign for discount tickets for Magic Springs, which was key cause we weren't excited about dropping dollar #1 in Arkansas anyway, so the more we could save, the better. 10 bucks off. Bonus. So we finally get in the parking lot and see Arkansas Twister doing it's thing back in the back of the park. Another funny thing was that general admission was $36.95 and their regular season pass was just 3 dollar more at $39.95! I can understand maybe 20 bucks more, but 3? I figured you'd want a season pass to be just less expensive than 2 visits. Leaving $$ at the gate if you ask me, but you didn't. So, we queued up to purchase our tickets and at this point, I made the proclamation, on camera no less, that we'd be in and out in an hour and a half. Sadly, I was proved wrong not even 5 minutes later as the line to purchase our tickets ended up being about 20 minutes. We were originally only 5 people deep. Kris said it was because Arkansas people couldn't just conduct business, they had to make conversation out of everything. Kris : They can't just buy tickets they have to say. Employee : What is your name, sir? Patron : Bob Johnson. Employee : Oh really??? Do you know Mildred Johnson out of route 4? That's my cousin! Patron : No, but I went to high school with a Judy Johnson! You get the idea. We were a little pissy. We were somewhere we didn't wanna be, and the worst thing you could make us do other than be out in 96 degree weather with a heat index of 110 is make us be out in that because people hold us up talking about pointless things. We get it, people are friendly. But be friendly inside with air conditioning, and be friendly after we've got our credits. Ok, no more bad talk about this park. Because for where it is, it really is a nice park. Not much shading, but the rides aren't bad at all. The waterpark, obviously is the chief draw here, and deservedly so (hey, pay attention SFNO). It has plenty of theming for what it was, with some really nice signs for the rides. It's a little confusing to get to a few of the rides like Gauntlet and Arkansas Twister, but we found them eventually. May as well start your day off right with... GAUNTLET (Vekoma SLC) Rating -2 I will say that the newer SLCs seem to have softer padding than the older ones, and it seemed to track better than some, but it's still Vekoma SLC goodness and we suffered some. Not much. But we surely didn't want more than our one ride even though it's the best SLC I've ridden. The ops were nice enough to let me shoot POV. Not sure why I wanted it, but I got it. Ride was a walkon. Big surprise, as the park was relatively dead. Quick bathroom break after that, and it was all I could do to even leave this bathroom. The temperature in there couldn't have been higher than 70. It was wonderful. At this point, you debate lying about the credits and spending an hour asleep in a stall, but we mustered the energy to finish the day. Gotta make the drive worth it. Next up was the kiddie coaster, which fortunately wasn't on the kiddie rental program. DIAMOND MINE RUN (umm Taxi Jam whatever style) Rating none Not sure what the official name for this is, but to me it will hereby be referred to as Kneebuster USA. See if you can figure out why. After this, we took in one of my favorite flats. A Zamperla Power Surge. They're tons of fun... well once, they are. Come to think of it, there were lots of Zamperla kiddie flats here as well. Makes you wonder if they just did a 10 ride package or something. Seems to make sense for parks to do that. They were everywhere. A little disoriented, but happy nonetheless, we got off the Power Surge and walked towards their Double Shot. This particular version ate it's Wheaties today cause it was punishing it's riders. Heck yes! And no line too?? We're gonna ride this like 20 times! Well, no. We wanted out of this park. One ride, but it was a heck of a one-ride. Up next was the relocated mine train from Dollyfood! BIG BAD BOB!! oh sorry, Adventureland WAS yesterday.. I mean BIG BAD JOHN (steel mine train) Rating 0 Really long mine train. I can see why Dolly needed the room. I'm never an advocate of removing a coaster for another one, but Tennessee Tornado trumps this in every way. Still I think Dolly could use a mine train, but that was hardly on my mind this THIS heat. I'm reflecting here. Fun little drop at the end. Nothing to complain about. Tough break that we rode this one day after Thunderation. Walk on. The ride of the park was up next, and I never would have thought it. TWIST AND SHOUT (steel wild mouse) Rating +2 I had heard stories of unbraked mice. Ricochet is as close as I'd seen. It's still really really fast, but it brakes after the initial drops now. Twist & Shout on the other hand was determined that it was gonna be THE coaster to remember at this park. We got in the really small cars and took off up the hill. Fortunately I called "Quitsies" at the top of the hill. Usually on mice, I like to play the game where you try to destroy your riding partner by crushing their body into the sidewall of the car and you alternate back and forth until you hit the brakes. Calling "Quitsies" before we got started might be the smartest single idea I have come up with on my short 30 years on this planet. One of us would have certainly perished. This mouse was not in the mood to play around. Most mice out there will toy with you by letting you go through the top portion unbraked, but then they settle down. Not this one. Every bit of speed it generates, it has as the gutbusting final brakes. Seriously, this thing was crazy. Loved it. Another walk on. Ok, at this point I looked like Pac-man on the old Saturday morning cartoon when he got bit by the ghosts. Basically, not good. I was totally ready to leave, but we had one more credit to get. And about 20 miles to get to it. Again, this park is nice, but some of the ways to get to coasters are as confusing as a bad game of RCT. Finally back to the front of the park up 10 flights of hills, we found the little side entrance to the woodie. Think one of those back pathways to the picnic areas at big parks. Really inconspicuous. Oh well, I was sitting on 248 and needed 249 so Ozark Wildcat could be 250 without having to ride crap first. ARKANSAS TWISTER (wooden out-n-back) Rating 0 It ran Gerstlaur trains. It could have been much worse. However it was smooth, although not much in the way of airtime. I guess I'm getting to the point with woodies that I expect the worst and would rather be pleasantly surprised. I ended up just being happy the Gerstlaurs didn't come into play much. The anti-rollbacks on the turnaround sound like what I would imagine it would sound if Godzilla, on a rampage through downtown Tokyo, were to pick up a taxicab with his teeth and crunch it with the mandibles of death I'm sure he'd have. You get the idea. Not only did it sound horrible, it took about 20mph off the speed of the coaster. Oh well, I expected it to just be ok, and it was. At this time, the temp dropped about 15 degrees as a black cloud appeared over the park, and God decided it was time for us to leave Arkansas. We were happy to oblige. As we got to the car, the bottom dropped out of the cloud. We looked at each other knowing that our ridiculous string of good luck was continuing. We didn't want to have to make the decision of whether to wait out a storm cause we were still missing a credit. Yay! Now only another 4.5 hours (this time by Interstate, if you please Kristopher!!) to Branson and nightime at Celebration City! Picture Time! Not bad at all. Kinda weird placement of trims, but not bad. This kiddie coaster kept overshooting the brakes resulting in kid's having a tough dismount from the train! Truly a harbinger of death ride. She loved me to death. She wanted me. Can't you tell? Kinda key here in this sitch'iation. Gauntlet. It's the first thing you see after this long driving? Let's just go home One of the old Rampage water slides... don't see these as much anymore. Another shot of dilapidated buildings and paths Old Dogpatch amusement park.. Sad. We're really not driving 4.5 hours through the mountains for 5 credits are we? :-/

Feeeeast Peeeeas? Where's the kid from anyhow?

^ What the shine are you talking about?

Someone host this, the site only allows 25 downloads.

:shock: :shock: a comment about the TR! or about the coasters!!:shock: :shock:

Part 3 Sunday, August 7, 2005 Another day, another dollar in the hole, and another long trip report to write. Lets see here, last time I was a' typin' we had just had a pretty busy, but killer day at two parks. Ah yes, WoF was quite a way to end an evening. After some reflection, Kris and I surmised that we were actually glad that had the 5 hours we had at WoF, but perhaps we had JUST the perfect amount of time there. Everything we wanted to do we did, and then some, however, if we had been there all day it might have been a little too much, so we were just pleasantly content with our visit, but not zombified after a hot day. So a quick jaunt across the Interstate and we had our lodgings for the evening. Meager lodgings. ONE double bed. Now I was ok with sharing a king sized bed, but I'm 6-2 about 200 lbs and Kris is 5-10 about 200, so this would really test us. Fortunately, Kris powdered out and slept on the floor citing reasons of liking to "sprawl" out, which was fine by me. God bless him. The kid is a blast at a park to hang out with, doesn't mind sleeping on floors when the ratios to male anatomy and square footage on a bed doesn't match up, and he LOVES to drive. Seriously, as I sit here and peck away going down the highway towards Hot Springs, Arkansas, I've logged a grand total of 2 hours driving, and that was the first doggone night. In any event, here we are. Let me catch you up... NOT so early Sunday morning, well about 1045 our time, we headed out towards Branson, Missouri and Silver Dollar City. Mapquest had KC to Branson about 4ish hours and with a total of about FIVE of those miles to be taken by way of Interstate, this could be every bit of that. We figured that we'd get there about maybe 2 and have all the time we needed. Unbeknownst to us at the time was SDC closed at 7!! Can't really blame us, as we HAD just been at a park the night before that was open til midnight. Bahh. Oh well, with my experience at Dollyfood, it could be jam up, but the lines for coasters would be minimal. I worried a bit with Powderkeg, but I figured Wildfire wouldn't be bad eating folks 4 across. We didn't end up getting to SDC until 3ish leaving us just about 3 hours to do this park.. Here's why. For those of you who have never been to Branson or Pigeon Forge, it's like country music shows and assorted tourist junk that belongs on a 8 lane road for all the traffic that clogs it. Sadly, the road that services these towns is lucky to have 2 lanes. Traffic, traffic, traffic. What's worse is it's just traffic for stuff that I have little to no interest in. And THIS from guy who likes country music. But this is just overkill with cheap entertainers making a living recreating Elvis, Red Skelton, and any other entertainer who once made their own living, you have these leeches making money doing someone else's schtick. I'm jaded I guess, I grew up in Myrtle Beach and tourist traps are tourist traps. So anyway, we got lost searching for our hotel. We should have just went straight to the park, but it was 95 degrees and I had already left my laptop in the scorching sun one day and I wasn't really thrilled about the idea of doing it again. So we trekked to our hotel, or rather, towards where we thought our hotel was. I was wrong, cost us an hour, but luck was smiling on us YET again. You'll see in a minute. I'm not sure I'm through ranting about stupid Branson traffic. Wait, ok yeah I am. The lady at the hotel told us a backroad around gay Branson traffic, and on the way up there we passed a billboard advertising something dumb. But on the sign was a little girl hugging a plastic hippopotamous. This conversation followed : Brian : Dood, that girl better be happy that's not a real hippo or that thing would bite her in half! Kris : Whatever, hippos teeth aren't sharp. They don't even eat meat. Brian : True, they eat cabbage and vegetation, but have you seen them? They're teeth are like huge dull tusks, and they could snap her like a twig. Kris : No they wouldn't. Hippos don't do that. Brian : Have you never heard of hippo attacks??? Kris : You're wrong. Hippos are nice. They eat marbles. So pulling in the lot to SDC, Kris is panicking just a bit worrying we wouldn't get all the credits. I wasn't. But that doesn't mean I'm the coolest guy in the world, it more means that I just wasn't too worried about it. Worse came to worse, we'd miss something like Fire in the Hole, which some don't call a credit anyway. So, at the ticket counter, I busted out the Gold Dollyfood pass and got my ticket, and Kris flashed his regular pass which got him half price admission and a special bonus! The lady told him since he purchased his ticket after 3PM, he could come back the next day for free! I knew this worked at th' Food in Pigeon Forge, but had no idea it would work here. At this point Kris relaxed, which was good. NOW, worse came to worse, we could come back the next night, as it was our home base for the next two nights. So anyway, we finally entered... SILVER DOLLAR CITY BRANSON, MISSOURI Again.. Eric Griswold scale (-3 to +5) with 0 being positive but only slightly This all seemed VERY familiar. It's seriously like Dollywood redeux, but somehow better. I can't really explain it. I mean, we only spent 3 and a half hours there, and I didn't end up doing much other than the basic credits but everything seems just a hair better than Dollywood in most every aspect. However, I could spend all day at Dollywood and the time I spent here was plenty. No real reason why. Anyway, we headed to the left after watching a bit of a country music show. Ok that was fun. So down this huge hill towards the BIG RIDES! YAY! So yeah, this enormous hill could double as the most suicidal sledding hill ever in the winter time. Not so sure it ever gets that cold in Branson, but if it did, this could rival any coaster in the park It wasn't long til we found our way to the very unique queue house for... WILDFIRE (B&M Steel Sitdown) +2 rating This coaster's theme was very neat for this park. I enjoyed it for the 3 minutes we had to wait to get to the loading station. Haha. So yeah, we figured first ride, we'd wait out the front. We probably waited 10 minutes queued for the front. Kris noticed that everyone in front of us was a group of 3 costing us precious time!! Not really, but we DID notice this anomaly. SDC does a pretty good job of allowing mucho photo ops for this coaster, so there was plenty of opportunities, and we took em, but not just yet. One disappointing side note is that the misters of "Wildfire" were not working this day. The op said they had been down a few days but MIGHT be back up tomorrow. The coaster does one of those cool dip-n-ups to the right and enters the lift. I won't go into crazy detail about the layout, but I will say that this coaster has a great drop and any non-invert with an immelman is a-ok in my book. It was interesting to note that there were two trims in use on the ride. One at the bottom of the first hill, and one entering the cobra roll. Odd, since they both hit and the coaster still cooks the entire way around the circuit. I loved it. A solid +2 and I'm betting it's even better at night, but no time for that now. Credits to score. We did stop long enough to pick up video footage and stills of the ride. We took a total of 3 rides on it today. One train waits the last two. MORE importantly, our QUEST was complete! Thanks to the Swiss engineering, we had finally gone upside down smoothly! But we couldn't turn back now.. oh no. It was time to launch from zero to breathless (as the marketing claimed!) Continuing on up the hill past like 35,000 food stalls which smelled good as heckfire. Another hill and we fell upon the newest SDC creation. The coaster formerly known as Buzzsaw Falls, but now... POWDERKEG (S&S Power steel launched) +2 rating I dunno. I really thought this would be the coaster of the trip. It was really a lot of fun. Had some pretty good forces. Some airtime, but for some reason, I missed the boat entirely on this ride. The station and queing area was themed to the 9's. They couldn't have done better theming, actually, but as far as ride goes, it was just ok. I mean, a +2 from me is a very good rating. This ride is really popular with a line that was always at least 20 minutes. It serves SDC great, but give me Thunderhead any day. The only thing I can think about Powderkeg that really didn't sit so great was the restraint system. It's identical to the Screaming Swings and they really do a good job of keeping you locked in, which is comforting if you're going upside down, I guess. But kinda more restricting for this type of coaster, and a bit unnecessary, IMO. The ride launches well and takes good speed over a few of the camelbacks, but the launch was pedestrian by thrill seekers standards, but PERFECT for families. The coaster is smooth as glass, and there ARE some decent airtime moments. The second hill, for me, killed the pacing of the ride. I can appreciate the preservation of one of the elements of Buzzsaw Falls, but all in all, I think the coaster is lesser for keeping it. The final drop is very steep and fun, but the 15 seconds it takes to scale the hill is too anti-climactic. Overall, a great ride. I was just expecting/hoping it would deliver more for this selfish coaster whore. We got 2 total rides. Front row, and very back. Waited 35 minutes the first time, and maybe 20ish the second time. Another great opportunity for some video or pictures of the launch. A funny incident came when Kris pulled the video camera out to get our rather bland onride picture shot on video. The attendant saw him and flipped his wig and like literally DOVE to hit a button to wipe the pictures. They're apparently not too keen on cheapos taking NON-SDC sanctioned pictures. Not that we cared, but it came off kinda chincy on their part. I mean, the park clearly makes cash hand-over-fist and we weren't gonna buy a horribly posed onride photo anyway. Whatever, I see their point. But the look that guy gave Kris was a little unnecessary. Haha. Onward to Blazing Fury's twin... or so we thought... FIRE IN THE HOLE (some weird steel partially powered coaster) 0 rating They do a better job theming here and also a better job of backstory. Dollywoods version makes little to no sense. Not to say that this one does either, but it tries. There's apparently some baddies here called the Baldknobbers who start fires. I will say also, that while the coaster layout maybe identical, the scenes are, I believe, completely different. FitH also has a much shorter train with individual lapbars as opposed to Dolly's version. FitH gets you MUCH wetter on the finale, which didn't tickle Kris's fancy none too much. Either way, fun for the family, which is the prevailing idea at this park. After putting out fires, I guess, we decided to take the long way around SDC. They have an awesome kiddie area. I mean, borderline spectacular really. They have a version of Mountain Slidewinder, but I can't say for sure how it matches up, cause the line was too doggone long to ride. So we passed and eventually happened upon... Thunderation (steel mine train with option to ride backwards) +2 I didn't really take in a whole lot of it, cause the one lap I took was backwards, but from what I could gather, this might be the best mine train I have ever ridden. It'd be tough to argue based on the pacing and forces it exerts. I liked it a lot, and Kris did too. He rode forwards and said it indeed WAS the best. One train operation so we waited maybe 10 minutes. Still, tons o' fun. At this time, we went back around and picked up the other two rides on Wildfire and then back up for the final lap on Powderkeg. We left a few minutes before closing, but were satisfied. Top to bottom, the rides here have Dollywood beat rather solidly, yet I'll take Thunderhead over any of the individual attractions here. Maybe I just enjoy powerriding, I really have no conclusive reasoning behind it. Bottom line is, AS expected, I love this park. After taking the tram back to lot F where our car awaited us, we drove back to sample some of Branson's finest cuisine. Taco Bell. I ordered something simple. Kris wanted 8 soft tacos, and the lovely Taco Bell temptress sweet talked him into ordering 10. Silly man. We tackled our din din, with Kris finishing 8 of 10, and headed back for an early evening. We had a long day in store for us tomorrow. Early AM drive through Arkansas, and then BACK to pick up Celebration City, where hopefully we'll meet our first VERY rerideable woodie! On with the pics! 3 parks down, and the shoes are still maintaining! Hell to the yeah! Oh to get to play in this area, but alas... too big Yes, it's still us and we're not any hotter. Just a tad hairier. Not sure, but it might be the coolest mine train ev This little girl was so adorable! Sadly, I pushed her out of the way so I wouldn't have to wait behind her family of 34 Yes, yes. Just press and hold lady. no NO!! You just turned it off.. wait, no.. ok now. Wait, you took it already? Fairly efficient. Loads faster than their S&S towers. Will it be the best ev?? Read up there to find out! Ok, maybe overkill on the Cobra.. sorry Talk about a shot of things to come!! This logo always seems like it should be for a park themed after "The Shining".

Quick update. The new TR should be up tomorrow afternoon. Thanks so far to all who have read, but especially to you blokes you take the time to share you thoughts.

Thanks! Didn't do Cyclone Sams cause I didn't know what it was, and I have somewhat of an aversion to spinning rides. Ozcatter, the trip is over, I'm just in the process of resizing pics and posting trip reports! There's 6 so far, and I'm not done! --Brian

Part 2... still August 6th, 2005 Soo, after a fun few hours at Adventureland, Kris and I decided that since we were already dealing with time travel, why not go ahead and try to completely screw with the space time continuum, and pick up Kansas City's Worlds of Fun in the same day and essentually BUY ourselves another day, creating a void that could destroy the world as we knew it. We must be doing ok because I haven't disappeared from my driver's license picture as of yet. (Note to self : don't watch Back to the Future before you go on trips). In any event, being out of Altoona Iowa at about 2:30ish, according to Mapquest, we could be in KC by 7. WoF wouldn't close until midnight, so realistically, 5 hours should be plenty of time for what Joe C. calls a 3 hour park. Fine by us, if we can double up Adventureland and WoF in one day, we've bought ourselves another day entirely. That makes a day at Holiday World much more feasible now. Just for reference sake, here was the plan for our trip, and you'll be able to see how much a little bit of luck would change things : Saturday : Adventureland Sunday : Worlds of Fun Monday : Silver Dollar City Tuesday : Magic Springs, Arkansas/Celebration City Wednesday :SFStL Thursday : Fly home AM So, we're looking very promising at this point. I was typing up the trip report for Adventureland, when I realized that Kris was actually obliterating Mapquest's 4 hour trek to KC. We made it in something like 3 tops. Not sure how. I was typing away. DIdn't look at spedometer. Sorry. But we did. Bonus. Checking into our hotel right across the street from WoF at the Crossland Extended Stay (roughly 40 bones on priceline.com), we dropped our gear off, and changed shirts and took off across the interstate to... WORLDS OF FUN (or according to Joe C, Worlds of not so much fun... so WONSMF?) Kansas City, Missouri Again, for continuity's sake I will be using the Eric Griswold scale for coasters -3 to +5 with 0 being positive, but only slightly It's strange. Someone like me, who's pretty tuned into the coaster enthusiast's take on parks I've never been to, was totally expecting Worlds of Fun to be filler. The meat of this trip, after all, was the Branson parks. Worlds of Fun couldn't be more literally ON THE WAY from Iowa to Branson. We both had CP passes. It made all the sense in the world. But you know the rub on this place, right? Only 5 coasters. Stupid Morgan hyper, rough piece of crap woodie Timberwolf, a freakin' boomerang, a spinning low capacity mouse, and for pete's sake, a kiddie Wacky Worm coaster. Plus we're a year early. Patriot and it's B&M goodness would come the following spring, and I'm not a weirdo who obsesses about the future. How in the world could THIS park be fun? Easy. Go in with zero (or less than zero expectations), and have the stereotypes demolished for you. Bonus that we bulldozed our way over the parking attendant and got free parking with our CP passes whether we were supposed to or not. We parked 60 miles away and walked. Even at 630 pm, there were 10 people leaving for every 2 going in. You know it's funny. Worlds of Fun is a lot prettier of a park than I expected. I was thinking it would be Dorney West with black asphalt and zero trees and hills for days. I couldn't be more wrong. Worlds of Fun is a VERY pretty park with some very unique settings for rides. We took a left upon entry and I got a park map and busted it out doing my best touron imitation. Moving to our left, the first coaster up would be the Boomer. Great. I was really surprised to see the level of theming for it's "Worlds". Boomerang at this point was looking like it was sporting the newer trains, which comforted me a bit, but not much. It was also, at this point, sporting what looked to be about a 30 minute wait, at best. Sorry, no dice. This would have to wait. At this point, it didn't look like we'd be able to get all the credits in. Which meant that we might have to swing back through in the AM and pick up a few credits. Not the end of the world, but if Boomerang was like this, what could everything else be. Up the hill we went to Mamba. Yay. This part certainly looked the whole "Dorney West" part. Same color scheme as Steel Force with green trains to be the whole snake thing. Impressive? Not really, but hey, it's a hyper. It should be at least kinda fun. Mamba has 3 sections of switchbacks and the first and third were empty but the second was jammed up, but they WERE running 3 trains. Kinda nice of them. The ride attendant standing out front predicted about a 20 minute wait and also threw in the this was the busiest day he had seen all year. The line moved steadily, and soon enough we were in the station. MAMBA (Morgan steel hyper) +3 rating (+4 at night) I have every reason in the world to hate these coasters. The trains are just not very interactive and you sit waaay to far down in them. The layout never seems very inspired either. We took a 1-3 first ride. At this point, I found the FIRST surprise coaster of the trip. I really wasn't expecting any airtime. Joe had told me on the phone that Mamba was really quite good, but he likes Hurricane Cat. 5, and I'm also familiar with his penchant for Gerstlaur trains on woodies, so is opinion, while educated, is taken with a grain of salt. In this case though, he was right. Mamba's first drop was very good and the second camelback was floater's bliss. Nearly 4 full seconds of floating air. Then the helix of doom. Man, between the headchoppers and the g forces this helix pulls, I felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under me. What was I on?? Crazy. Airtime into the MCBR?? Wow. This coaster was a solid, solid effort and stomped the guts out of Steel Force. A SOLID +2 rating when I felt it wouldn't get anything more than a 0. Great way to start out the park. Off of Mamba, we headed towards Timberwolf to it out of the way. We passed Detonator, their S&S double shot, but the line was still kinda ridick, so we moved on. WoF IS a confusing park to navigate, period. Walking by Camp Snoopy, we figured we'd try our luck with their Wacky Worm. It took a bit, but we finally found a couple of young gents who let us ride with them. Kid renting isn't for the faint of heart, and it nearly bested me, but we hung in there like the champs we were. Haha. After that 30 seconds of delight, it was time to go right after that crazy forest wild canine. Got lost, but we eventually found the entrance to Timberwolf, after running into a deadend down near Thunderhawk, their TopSpin with water geysers. No thanks, with KW's still fresh in my memory, I passed. TIMBERWOLF (?? wooden double out-n-back) When a coaster sign in front of the station basically says "This ride offers a severe jostling experience. If you're a big baby and can't take a whooping, do us a favor, don't ride" I started to worry. Joe actually said this was a lot of fun in the back, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, we made our way back to the back. Then, the magic happened. 2 trains from getting on, you hear the dreaded words "Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, your hopes of getting all the credits in tonight are dashed, as we're going down for an indeterminable amount of time for an unspecified reason. Sorry... kinda" So what do you do? You're 10,000 miles away from home at a park that, at this point, while pretty, have no desire to get back out here in the foreseeable future even though they ARE getting an invert next year. We decided to wait. 4 mechanics show up and there's a small pow-wow. I was able to pick up a bit of the conversation that apparently there was a problem with seat 7. However, they didn't know if it was ROW 7 or SEAT 7, which would be row 4, left side. While they were deciding that, they made a second announcement that they would PROBABLY be down a long time and everyone should basically roll out cause it would be a while. Everyone else did. Two dolts from back east didn't. A few minutes later, a ride op stopped in to talk to us and REALLY encouraged us to leave. I asked him what was up with seat 7. He volunteered that apparently someone had went to Guest Relations and complained that they had a really, REALLY bad ride in seat 7 causing them to leave the park in great discomfort. So naturally, WoF reacted by shutting down the ride, and apparently making maintenance come out. The ride op at THIS point told me something I had never heard. The carpenters would have to walk the ENTIRE track to look for any sign of delamination, or track failure of some kind. Amazing. We were then told that his ride supervisor ordered everyone must leave the station. Hmm. Well, where do you go next? The capacity monster known as... SPINNING DRAGONS (Gerstlaur steel spinning mouse) 0 rating It was about 8:30PM, and the line was immense like we figured it would be. But we passed the time chitting with a guy and his girlfriend who actually started talking to me because I was taking pictures. Good people these Kansans. We easily waited 45 minutes or so, but it was ok. At this point, the sun was fading and the temps became MUCH more doable. This coaster ran maybe 6 trains, but it constantly stacked 4. Not really the attendants fault. It is a rather short coaster, and getting people buckled in wasn't an easy feat. In any event, we were on finally. We didn't spin a whole lot, and that was just fine by me. Odd little coaster. Certainly not anything a Cedar Point could ever pull off, but neat anyway. Time to go get that Boomerang since it didn't seem Timberwolf was feeling froggy yet. BOOMERANG (Vekoma steel shuttle) 0 rating Yep, I said it. A positive rating of Boomerang. Here's why. It's quite simple really. See, there was still a line for it, and we resigned ourselves to waiting in it. Oh well. But the line flew. They cranked people through that thing. That's a positive. The trains were the new style, so they had little grooves molded into the back of the seats for my long ass legs and my knees usually are jammed all up in the back of the seat in front of me. Also positive. No headbanging. Another positive, and quite possibly the most impressive part about it. It's still a boomerang, and it'll never be great. No desire to re-ride even if completely empty, but even so, the fact that I'm not dying of a brain hemmhorage, garners it a 0.. which is slightly positive. Good enough for me. Since we were only missing Timberwolf, no point passing up the surprise coaster of the trip. Mamba was only maybe a 5 minute wait to get into the station, so it was a no brainer. We chose a second to last seat ride, and wow, as nightfall came, so did more speed and more airtime. This coaster really really surprised me. As we flew down the second drop, Kris screams out "TIMBERWOLF IS RUNNING!!!" No time for that as of yet. Mamba was whipping the piss out of me! After disembarking, we scooted down to Timberwolf for another crack at it. TIMBERWOLF (?? wooden double out-n-back) +2 This was a coaster that I had seen POV of long ago, but I really had no idea what to expect. I still don't have much of a clue about the layout. Don't have much of a clue about anything, really. Let me tell you the best way to describe this coaster. This the FUNNEST, rough piece of crap coaster I have ever ridden in my entire life!! Seriously, it shuffles and bumps and kicks your butt, and I've NEVER seen a woodie with sprinklers stationed at least 4 places along turnarounds, but it had them! So, basically you're trying to ride defensively cause it's bashing you left and right and up and down, and at the same time you're trying to shield yourself from a water bombardment. This wasn't like misters here, it was like a LOT more water! Crazy! So it's dark, I can't see, and I'm getting random ejector airtime moments and screaming "Ow!" and yet laughing my ass off! Totally tons of fun. Kris mentioned that if this coaster were smooth, could be top 5 material. How do I argue?? A SECOND surprise coaster of the trip in the SAME park! Crazy fun. It's the best way to describe it. Time for more Mamba! At this point it's about 10:10 PM. We were looking at nearly 2 hours of night rides on a really surprising hyper! Bonus! All told, we picked up another 4 rides. We waited it out for 1-1, and the very last car, 1-2 and 2-1. By nights end, I had a new top 5 coaster and Kris had a new #2 which considering both of us have been on over 200 coasters should feel embarrassing, but it doesn't. Mamba is probably THE most underrated steelie in the continental United States. We left just before midnight and called it a day. Although Boomerang didn't help up acheive our quest, we didn't expect it to. Hopefully Wildfire will help us out a bit tomorrow! A heck of a day, but we felt very happy that we'd done the unlikely and created another day for us to cram in another park! Next up? BAD BOB!! Err, I mean, Branson, Missouri! See you tomorrow! Picture TIME! I don't care, say what you will. A park that's open til MIDNIGHT... yep, it's the lick. More generic on ride photos.. zz More Mamba photo silliness abounds! What a shocker! WoF is FRO awesome! Only an hour wait?? What a bargain! Ok, seriously... last chance to bail! Doesn't look TOOO bad?! Your first clue to run away screaming into the night Yay. Two morons queing up for Timberwolf. One looks retarded, one just is. It doesn't look that great, so HOW is it THAT great?? Wait, what's MF and Raptor doing here? And when did CP change their logo... and name??? Top 5. I know, crazy right? Does it being the smoothest Boomer make it any better? What about with vibrant colors?

Thanks everyone! Shari, I actually didn't make it up. I'm known for having a weird vocab, but this phrase is actually from the 70's. My friend resurrected it, and it stuck with me. You don't have to learn it, but I can't promise that you won't hear it a few more times during the course of my TRs 8)

Of course! Had to get this trip over with so I could be there for the first game, baby.

It's a good question. The only thing I can think of is poor eating at parks, and that may be ALL the exercise these folk get. Better question is what's the tie in between coasters and the gay community. :?

Thanks. Already had it typed out. Just had to resize the pics. :?