XII

Great Video of Outlaw Run. So glad to see that it exceeded expectations and I can't wait to get back to Silver Dollar City and ride this this summer.

No. Do you play any type of sport?

3 Hints to make the most of a day @ SFMM. 1. Take advantages of the Single Riders Lines on Lex Luthor, Riddlers Revenge, and Green Lantern. 2. Do the back of the park first. Most people are at the front of the park at this time and lines for rides like Goliath, Scream, Batman, & Apocalypse are shortest then. 3. X2 has a sweet spot where the line tends to shrink around 3:00. Hope this helps.

I'm generally impressed with the results of this years Steel Coaster Results. I'm glad to see that I've ridden 5 of the coasters in the Top 12 and that the results for the Top 2 and Worst Steel Coaster perfectly match with my Top 10 List. I was definitely surprised to see OzIris place so high at #34 considering the reviews of all the people from the TPR Europe Trip, and the fact that its essentially the French Equivalent of Silver Bullet. I'm also relatively pleased about where Manta (SWSD) placed. I know a lot of people felt it was ranked too low, though I feel that for a new small family coaster to rank in the Top 110 out of 365 coasters and be in the Top Third, thats a pretty impressive (and rightfully deserved) ranking for Manta.

If they can make a good launched coaster (which I'm sure they could) and a park wants one, then why shouldn't they? Do you have a new coaster opening at your home park this year?

Great Update Robb. I've always had some interest in space exploration and this update brought out the Astronomy Dork inside of me. I'm definitely hoping to check out the Kennedy Space Center on my next visit to Florida.

That's pretty much how I'm picturing it as well. Sounds like the perfect addition to go along with Movieland Studio's other terrifyingly awesome attractions.

Rock and Roll Music - Chuck Berry

Coaster @ PNE Playland.

1. Maverick 2. Millennium Force 3. Raptor 4. Top Thrill Dragster 5. Magnum XL 200 6. Wicked Twister 7. Gemini 8. Mantis 9. Blue Streak 10. Disaster Transport 11. Iron Dragon 12. Cedar Creek Mine Ride 13. Mean Streak

Into the Great Wide Open - Tom Petty

While this isn't super crazy, the amount of people who stand up on water rides cause they don't want to get wet is much higher than I thought before working at a park. At Roaring Rapids, we have on average about 10 people a day who stand up people cause they don't want to get wet, even though they waited 3 hours to go on a ride that clearly states that you will get wet. And this is includes days where its 110 degrees where you would expect people to want to get wet. I've also seen people sitting in the center ring of the boat where people put their stuff, as well as a few boats with everyone standing up playing stupid games involving running around in the boats while in motion. Aside from water ride incidents, I've had to call security on people who were visibly high and smelled strongly of marijuana. Though after reading the stories of snorting cocaine in line, things certainly could've been worse. In fact, reading most of these stories made me glad I haven't had to deal with a lot of those situations, which sound a lot worse than the situations I listed.

Immortality as the opposite sex. Come Together by the Beatles or by Aerosmith?

Fantasialand in Italy. The place looked abandoned, we had to bribe people with a gun 300 euros to get on a crappy galaxy and everything looked like it was going to fall apart.

Matterhorn @ DLR

Favorite Endings: Boulderdash Coaster @ PNE Playland Maverick Worst Ending Revenge of the Mummy @ USH - People always talk about being let down by Adventure Express or Ninja @ SFMM's endings, but this takes the cake for biggest letdown. After you stop with the backwards section and they play the creepy music, turn around and see the sand head. This must be leading up to something big. BAM!!! The rides over. All that build up for nothing. Honorable Mentions Adventure Express Ninja @ SFMM

Song Mixup of "Coming Undone" by Korn and "We Are Never Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift. Put the two together and its actually pretty cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P7gar7efHI

My first was Revolution with the OTSRs. However, my first non-botched Schwarzkoph was Montezooma's Revenge @ KBF.

The Howling - Within Temptation

Got a few more to add to my Underrated List. Scandia Screamer - This is NOT a credit whoring coaster. This ride has strong airtime and strong laterals. Its definitely better than your average credit-whoring coaster. Yankee Cannonball - While this ride isn't hated, its typically forgotten. And its a good ride with some really good airtime. Comet @ Great Escape - This ride may be highly rated, but I honestly don't think its rated high enough, considering how I consider it Top 10 Worthy. Shock @ Rainbow Magicland - This thing is GREAT!!!! It has everyone I want in a coaster. Good Airtime, Good Launch, Great Laterals, and fun hangtime in the inversion. Its a shame more people don't talk about this. Divertical - Hey. I really enjoyed this ride. Its a great fit for the park and considering how hot it gets in Italy, provides both a fun ride with a much needed cooling. Space Mountain @ Disneyland Paris - Its rough, but not Gouderix rough. And the roughness is worth the ride.

All right. Time for the next park and the final park of the Italy portion of the trip. Gardaland. We actually had 2 days at this park as Robb got us 2 day tickets so we could go after our day at Movieland Studios since the park stayed open till 10:00 (which is not common in Europe). While this park didn't have the intense coasters of Mirabilandia or the general craziness of Movieland Studios right next door, I still found Gardaland to be a very nice park. It had a good selection of rides, including a B&M Wingrider. While these aren't the craziest rides out there, they certainly are a lot of fun. And the water effects on Raptor really do make a difference. None of the other coasters are that good (SLC, Loopscrew, Screaming "Pointless" Squirrel), but there is still a lot of cool things to check out at this park. They've got some really cool dark rides such as a Pirates of the Caribbean Knockoff thats in some ways, better than Pirates, and a totally fun dark ride about shooting Mummy Zombie Alien Terminator Robots in Ancient Egypt. But on top of that, there's just a lot to do at this park. You can tell that its trying to be the Disneyland of Italy, and while I wouldn't call Gardaland Disney Good, its still a very good park that I'd definitely recommend. Oh, and here's a POV of that crazy dark ride with Mummy Terminators. Ooh!!! They're passing out free Coke Zero Samples!!! Hey. You can't go wrong with anything thats free. Does that count as a credit? After our day at Movieland Studios, we had two day tickets to Gardaland and the park was open till 11:00, so we decided to just hang out and get some stuff done. Ooh!!! I see a roller coaster!!!! Welcome to Gardaland. Of course we're gonna hit this up first. All right. So this was my first B&M Wingrider. What did I think? Honestly, I was impressed. I was expecting a forceless ride. And while its not insane, its just a ton of fun. Enjoy your ride on Raptor!!! No need for Fastpass tonight. It looks like we're gonna be fine. All right. Lets just get this out of the way as quickly as possible. This is no ordinary SLC. This one has the BONUS HELIX!!!!!!! Though in all seriousness, it wasn't that bad. Damn. We're on a roll with Vekoma Rides tonight. Hey. This was a really good mine train. And well themed as well. Is that seriously the size of their drop tower? Come on Gardaland!!!! This is puny!!!! Well at least it has a cool themed line. We decided to see the Ice Age show. It was cool, though it would've been better if I spoke Italian, or had any familiarity with the Ice Age Movies. For instance, I had no clue that the female wooly mammoth was pregnant until she went into labor and I was like "It looks like..." Boom. Baby Wooly Mammoth. We decided to check out their shooting dark ride. Ramses. This dark ride is awesome. Its like Mummy meets Terminator. See my POV up above and see for yourself. Ooh. Trippy. WHO MISSED THE BUS!!!? All right. We're up nice and early the next morning. For its time for... ERT ON RAPTOR!!!!!! Its no Kumba or anything, but its a ton of fun. Its very fun and very floaty with lots of hangtime. It almost reminds me of Hydra @ Dorney Park in a way, except with much better theming and it actually gets you more wet than the water rides. Kick the sky!!!! Oops, wrong Raptor. Sorry Cedar Point. Honestly, my only problem with this ride are the restraints. I was expecting just a rubber vest similar to that on Tatsu. But these things keep stapling you in, never giving you a chance to breathe. Oh yeah. We also have ERT on Sequoia Adventure. Umm, what exactly does this ride do? Oh joy. That looks so thrilling. It wouldn't even that bad if it weren't for all the trim brakes that make it crawl. Hey, at least its a credit. Oh yeah. And Gardaland gave us all these personalized key chains. Grazi Gardaland!!! Grazi!!!! Time to get some nice ariel shots of Gardaland. I love the setting of this park. Thank you Fastpass!!!! Good bye Line!!!! Its a fun water ride, but yeah. Its a water ride. NOT A CREDIT!!!!! Ooh. Lets take a ride on their Monorail. Ooh. Look at all the pretty lights. I'm confused. Where am I again? Ooh. They have a Vekoma Mad House in the kids area. These things are all over Europe. Hey. Nice looking kids area. This is so politically correct. I'm sure that all those kids are proper representations of their cultures. All right. Time for lunch. And yeah, they have a great selection at Gardaland. Oh, time for another America vs Europe Comparison. FANTA IS SO MUCH BETTER IN EUROPE!!! Seriously, American Fanta tastes like crap now. I refuse to drink it till I go back to Europe or somewhere else in the world. Now everyones told me that its because they use real sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup. And yeah, I'm sure they do that and that helps. But thats not just it. Because its a MUCH bigger difference than that. Its much bigger than when they do Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwbacks and use real sugar. I think someone once said that they use real orange juice in European Fanta. Now that I believe since it tastes so much orangier than in America. Time for their kiddy coaster. If you thought that this was just an ordinary Wacky Worm, you'd be mistaken. Its actually a lot of fun and has a great layout. Great for a kiddy coaster. Just one last credit for me to get at Gardaland. Magic Mountain. And its properly themed to SFMM, with all the ads in the station. Hey. At least they're upselling a great product. Definetly one of the better Loopscrews. Not too rough and actually had some decent airtime. I actually enjoyed it. "Hey David!!! It's ok to eat me!!! I'm vegan!!!!" Yeah. This wasn't one of the greatest log flumes or anything. But I had fun. Um, yeah. This Spongebob Simulator was rough as hell. Lets take another ride on Raptor. Because hey. Why not!!!!? WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!!!! "We've got special plans for him at Guantanamo Bay. *evil laugh*" Yeah. We did the hedge maze. Cause hey!!! Why not!!! It can't be that hard. Thanks for the ever-so-helpful advice. *rolls eyes* We all made it out. Well, except for Colin who had to cheat to get out. Hey, these are fun and they have a nice theme, but they're not gonna help you escape the Italian heat. All right. Time to check out the parks Pirates of the Carribean knock off, Icorsari. Dude!!! This thing was awesome!!! It was almost better than the real Pirates of the Carribean in some ways!!! Hey look!!! Another totally family friendly moment to share with everyone!!! Yeah. It goes under the sea. Its very strange in that way. Speaking of really strange dark rides, lets hit up Ramses again!!!! Grr!!! I'm the Mummy Terminator!!! I'm from the past but also from the future!!! So I guess that means I'm from the present I guess!!! Gimme a Pizza Party!!!! Ooh. Look at the pretty lights. Yeah. Space Vertigo has a funky fast pass door. Come on Gardaland. This ride is so small that its nearly cliff jumpable!!! You can totally make it bigger!!! Hey. We may have used up all our Raptor Fastpasses, but we can still get on thanks to the Single Riders Line. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that night rides on Raptor is the best way to close out my fantastic visit to Gardaland and Italy in general. Switzerland & Walygator Photos will be posted soon.

So far: Six Flags Magic Mountain Coming Up: Disneyland Resort Knotts Berry Farm Lagoon Six Flags Discovory Kingdom California's Great America Gilroy Gardens Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Castles 'N' Coasters Western Playland Six Flags Fiesta Texas Sea World San Antonio Gavelston Pier Kemah Boardwalk Six Flags Over Texas Silver Dollar City Frontier City Wonderland Cliffs

Magnum XL 200 Chicken or Beef?

Back in the Saddle - Aerosmith

Holy Sh*t!!! Those photos look incredible!!!!! I can't wait to ride this thing this summer. If it rides as good as it looks, then it's gonna be incredible.