All Clear

All good points and all very true. I should have said it was a miserable ride for me. Rattling aside, I was grayed out for most of it and I personally generally hate onboard audio. It is a beautiful looking ride, indeed, and would make any park's skyline more attractive. I just wouldn't get all worked up if it was a park near me.

As far as concerns about the B&M go, I'd like to throw out that it is a pretty miserable ride. The only B&M worse than it that I've been on is Vortex at CGA.

Man, I love that park! I have got to get back down there soon.

Congratulations on your engagement! I laughed out loud at your presentation of your penguin experience. I started to go opening night and I just wasn't up for it. Now I'm not sure I'll go at all this year. This is not the only report I've heard about the general disorganization and poor crowd control in the Festhaus. Stuff like that ruins an evening for me, so I may just avoid it this year and hope they get it straightened out for next year. Yah, and the smelling of your pudding? I think that's totally weird.

I just want to throw out there that Holiday World seems to be pretty smart about how they do things. This isn't just a "let's try something crazy and hope it works" kind of a thing. They seem to work pretty closely with The Gravity Group and have a good relationship with them which means everyone is aware of any chances being taken and no one wants anything to not work. Holiday World is pretty good at doing things that other parks wouldn't do and having them work out. [inside joke alert] "They're doing it! They dare! They dare! They're doing it! And what a lot of other theme parks wouldn't dare to to do, Holiday World are daring to do!"

That back seat is gonna be dreamy. Or deadly. Whatever.

I think having no seatbelt will take up the capacity slack of dropping a train. As was said earlier, any time I was there with 3 train operation, it usually didn't make much difference in capacity due to stacking. Not that the stacking was the fault of the crew...they were always hustling. Now that I think of it, I can't think of anywhere I've been that ran more than two trains without stacking a little unless the station had separate loading and unloading areas.

That was indeed magical. 1. I went to the shopping center where Lakeside used to be in Salem, VA (it was on the way to visit family) and went snooping around behind the Kroger looking for evidence of the Shooting Star. I had heard the lifthill and some other parts were still back there. They weren't. 2. I asked the other 3 guys waiting for the back row of Kraken if they would go ahead of me because I had already been on the right hand side and wanted to go on the left. After the ride, they asked me if the left was better than the right and I told them I preferred the right after all and started to say something about a pop of air coming off the MCBR when I noticed them giving each other looks and realized they were making fun of me. So I kicked all their a$$es and then did it with all their wives and girlfriends. And moms. Ha! I showed them GP bastards.

I'm going to count 50s as milestones until I hit 500 or something so my milestone list doesn't look so small. 50 Looping Star at Beech Bend 100 Thunderhead at Dollywood 150 Tivoli at Marineland 200 Giant Dipper at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk 250 Speed at Nascar Cafe Las Vegas I'm sad because up until just now, I thought Canyon Blaster at Adventure Dome was my 250th. It was the only Vegas coaster that I really liked. So 50% of my actual milestones took place on a TPR trip, while 2 out of 3 semi milestones did. The moral of this story is "Go on a TPR trip."

It was one of the weirdest ride experiences I've had. Kind of like a tripping Chance Zipper on crack on fire. Toward the front of the train on the inside seats, the ride was relatively non torturous. In the back on the outside it was that amazing "please can I have death instead" but fun kind of a thing. Also, I thought it was the most fun at night, but a lot of that was because of the excitement generated by being on the West Coast Tour and getting a surprise extra night at SFMM that we hadn't planned on. A bunch of us in line together had never been on it before so it was just a really amazing atmosphere in general. The first drop is definitely worth any suffering that may or may not come after it, IMHO.

Indiana Beach was my favorite "new to me" park this year. If I lived within two or even three hours drive, I would definitely make use of a season pass there.

Great pictures and awesome memories. Looking back, I kind of wish I had not done the add on because I hated Las Vegas and it would have been great to end the trip with a bang at Disneyland.

A couple of years ago on passholder preview day at BGE, temperatures were in the thirties and I got to ride Alpengeist in some actual snow. It was amazing and horrible at the same time. We were expecting temperatures in the 40s and had dressed accordingly. We didn't last very long that day. Then, of course, there is the legendary Ravine Flyer II ERT session from the Behemoth/Ravine Flyer trip last year... Some TPR tripper: "Was that thunder?" RFII ride op: "Shh! We didn't hear that. All clear!"

I really want to know that too!! As Robb mentioned a couple of pages ago, probably Richmond.

I prefer Batmen to SLCs, but the two I've been on were a little more intense than what I prefer. I like "easier" inverts like Silver Bullet, Montu, and Top Flight Burner Deck (Carowinds). And yes, the B&M zero G is the best steel coaster element ever.

It's absolutely true that Orlando Shamu kicked a$$ while California Shamu just kind of stood there going "I'm an orca."

My understanding was that Cedar Fair turned all the backward trains forward because PTC wouldn't service the trains otherwise. Paramount had done train maintenance in-house.

Finally got my KD Taxi Jam credit on Labor Day! Sad? Check. Pathetic? Check. Worth it? Worth it? Worth it?

So do they run the backward train on the side of the track that normally just sits there rotting the rest of the year or do they replace the forward facing train all together?

If you want to ride as many coasters as possible, I would take Robb's advice and hit both parks. Last summer, on a weekday, I rode all of the coasters at KD (except Shockwave because I might want kids someday) by lunchtime. The addition of Intimidator will add some time, as well as how they are staggering the opening times of various rides. I haven't been this year, so I don't know how badly that wrecks a morning. Either way, you could be on your way to Busch by mid afternoon, I would think. So why not stop off at Pierce's Pitt Bar-B-Que for lunch? It's delicious. If you just want a nice day at a park, go to Busch Gardens. You can enjoy a full day there even if you don't ride anything.

^Natalie should have her trip report up by Christmas of 2011. I wish we could have gotten there in time for the sightseeing day. It looks like you guys had a pretty good time. Santa Monica seems like ages ago....

The first day of the Behemoth/Ravine Flyer trip, Prawgdawg (I think is his name on here) and I legally stole some kids to ride Bear Trax at Seabreeze. Too bad when we got up to the front of the line, our KIDS were too tall to ride. So in a panic, he tried to steal the kids behind us, right in front of the ride op and she was all "GTFO." So later we went back and got some kids from their parents who were getting off the ride. As we waited in line, the op kept looking at us suspiciously and then picked up the phone, staring at us the whole time. Shortly thereafter, a security guard walked up and asked us if we knew these kids. Fortunately, their parents were standing nearby and waved sweetly to us. The security guy apologized and we got on. I think that's about the dirtiest I ever felt getting a credit.

I rode FOF a couple of years ago and was shocked by how much rougher it was than the one at KD. Imagine my surprise when I rode it this season and is was way worse than I remembered it. It actually shuffled like a poorly maintained woodie.

A guy in a coffee shop told me this morning that the Grizzly Bear was his favorite coaster at Busch Gardens. I was like, "Uh, me too."

I agree that they shouldn't replace BBW with another huge ride. That area would make for a really kicka$$ mine train.