Sue

I would also like to see Hershey open at last one coaster during Christmas. If Dollywood and Beech Bend can do it, there’s no reason Hershey can’t. Dollywood just closes them down if it falls below a certain temperature so Hershey could easily do the same. As for Farenheit, if it is closed, I doubt it has to do with staffing. True, they may be short on staff, but why would they close they’re new popular coaster when they could close something like Sidewinder or Trainlblazer.

Looked like a fun time! Chuck or anyone else on the East Coast Trip--how is the KD Grizzly running these days?

This sounds like an excellent idea. Canobie always seems to attract crowds so I'm sure the Halloween season will be no exception. Hopefully moose or someone else on the forums will be able to attend and let us know how it is.

Voodoo at Dorney 106 rides for the season so far. I'm glad we were able to reach 100 today since Dorney is closed more than 1/2 of the operating days during September for buy-out's.

Great TR's so far, Erik! Happy to hear that Boulder Dash is your #1. Rich and I love it so much that we got married on it! I also love the SFNE restroom line. That one always has a line no matter what. Apparently people don't know there's other restrooms in the park. I know I never wait in a line when I'm there.

The store you're talking about in that shopping mall area on Cedar Crest Blvd. is called Kings, not Weis. However, it is under the same ownership as Weis and would probably sell the tickets.

My plate is "BLDR DSH".

It annoys me to no end when people wear hats on coasters. If they lose it, they get what they deserved and the park shouldn't get it for them. It should be the park's responsibility to make sure people don't wear hats in the first place.

Rich and I got engaged in front of Montu(our favorite steel coaster) at Busch Gardens Africa and married on Boulder Dash(our favorite wooden coaster) at Lake Compounce.

Congrats to you both. That's a great video!

Thanks for taking the time to post all of these pictures. Although they're interesting to see, they're also very sad.

Riverwalk in San Antonio is one of my favorite places to visit. We passed on the boat ride this time and just walked around. We did the boat last time and it was very uncomfortable and sweaty with everyone packed in like sardines. We also didn't have that much time since we were heading back to Houston to fly home that evening. Don't fall in! The Alamo: Tower of the Americas: 2,900 miles later, our trip had come to an end. Thanks for reading!

We spent the moning/early afternoon and evening at the park with a rest during the day at the hotel. The crowds were heavy, but we managed to ride everything we wanted without buying a Flash Pass. People in TX must love pain because the Boomerang and Rattler seem to be the most popular rides in the park. We couldn't believe the lines for the 2 of them! At park opening there was actually a long line of people waiting for Boomerang to open. It was looking like we wouldn't even get to ride Rattler due to the line, but it finally clamed down when the Lone Star Spectacular started. I couldn't find any souvenirs for our favorite ride there, Superman Krypton Coaster, yet they have souvenirs for Rattler and Boomerang. Go figure! Rattler certainly lives up to it's name, but is still far better than Texas Giant. We even rode Rattler 5 times in a row to end the night. Yes, we're crazy for doing that, but there really wasn't anything else to ride. We had been looking forward to a night ride on Superman Krypton Coaster. It turns out that they close it down at 9 pm for the Lone Star Spectacular and don't reopen it afterwards. We were not pleased that we got screwed out of a night ride on one of our favorites. That sign wasn't around earlier when we rode it either because if we had known, we would've made a point to get there before 9. On a positive note, it took until the last park we visited on this trip, but the operations on Superman Krypton Coaster in the morning were top notch. We were able to stay on for 10 straight rides. It was just the operator running the ride a 1 supervisor checking the restraints. This supervisor was so fast that the trains were never even stacking. We made a point to tell her what an excellent job she was doing and that she was doing a better job than a 4 person crew normally does. Tony Hawk's Big Spin: Poltergeist: Hustler flat ride: Rattler: Boomerang Coast to Coaster: Goliath: Scream: Scooby Doo: Ferris Wheel: Bugs White Water Rapids flume:

Even though Sea World is expensive and doesn't have many discounts, we decided to go there since there were 2 new coasters added since our last visit. With our Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards card, we were able to get admission for around $40/each. Since it was very hot and humid and the coaster operations were terrible, our stay was short. We just rode the coasters once each(except twice on Steel Eel) and saw 2 shows before leaving. As with Kemah Boardwalk having the worst wooden coaster operations we've ever seen, the Steel Eel crew gets the award for worst steel coaster operations we've ever seen. It's a long walk back to Steel Eel and we never even saw it dispatch. We were thinking it was closed, but it turns out they were just dispatching a train every 15 minutes or so. They were too busy goofing off and socializing to be bothered with dispatching the train. Plus, for some reason, they check lap bars twice on that coaster which slows it down even more. Shamu Express was new since our last visit. The Texas Splashdown flume looked good, but the line was too long for our taste. I think we rode it on our previous visit though. The "award" for worst steel coaster operations goes to.... We normally like the back seats on these type of coasters, but we much prefered the front seat on Steel Eel. The landings in the back seat are just too hard for our liking. The Great White coaster: The Shamu "I Believe" show: The other new coaster since our last visit was Journey to Atlantis. I got a bit wet on my side since I was sitting on the end of the row, but nothing too drenching. Since we left Sea World early, we decided to visit Six Flags Fiests Texas for the last hour or so that they were open. Lines were long so we decided on the single rider line for their new 2008 coaster, Goliath, which was running ONE train with a huge line. This is the coaster where Flash Pass users get priority seating in the front and people waiting in line have slim to no chance of getting it. Single riders and Flash Pass use the same stairway. Single riders get put in any row of the train so as far as I'm concerned, there's no excuse for Flash Pass users being automatically put in the front row. The kid behind us in the single rider line was trying to meet up with his group in the regular line. The employee at the station entrance told Rich and I that we could ride together in the front on the next train if we let the kid in front of us join his group in the station. Long story short, we wound up riding together in the front seat. With minutes to spare before park closing, we rushed over to Boomerang which was closed on our visit in 2001. We just made the front seat for the last train of the night. We couldn't believe it when everyone on the train started chanting "one more ride". On a freakin' Boomerang of all coasters to get a second ride on? Since we didn't want to be the only ones getting off, we went for the double ride. At least we got a good view of the Lone Star Spectacular laser light show as we were going up. My Boomerang quota for the year has definitely been fufilled!

After landing in Houston, we made the drive to Kemah Boardwalk. Based on the reviews we've heard of Boardwalk Bullet and it's hollow seat dividers, we were expecting the worst. Believe it or not, it actually wasn't that bad. It's still not my type of ride, but it didn't beat us up like we expected. Maybe it had something to do with the track work they had just done on it a few weeks prior? The most painful thing about it were the dispatch times. Gwazi at Busch Gardens Africa has always had the slowest wooden coaster loading procedures that we've seen, but the Boardwalk Bullet crew made them look fast. The BB crew was too busy eating and texting on their cell phones to be bothered dispatching the trains. This is the one time we wished for one train operation. While they took their sweet time checking the other train, we baked in the 100 degree sun on the brake run. We would've ridden more, but after 5 rides we were too fed up to keep riding. Thankfully there was no wait because I'd hate to see the length of the line when it gets busy! Passing back through Houston, we stopped by the former Six Flags Astroworld site. You would never even know that there was an amusement park there since it's just an empty, grassy field. To end the day, we stopped by ITZ in Houston. In order to get inside, you have to purchase a pizza buffet. You then have to pay again to go on the rides and play the games. We had the buffet and took a ride on the Itz Express coaster before hitting the road for our next destination in Arlington, TX.

The drop tower wasn't very big. According to their website, it's 90 feet tall.

Exactly. I just get severely bruised from the hollow seat dividers. It's hard to explain, butI'd rather have something solid to lean against that the hollow ones where part of your body is going through the hole in the hollow ones that it's not meant to go through.

Our first stop this day was Cliff's Amusement Park in Albuquerque, NM. Instead of the evening 7-10 hours we encounted at the past few parks, Cliff's was only open Thursday to Sunday with the strange hours of 11-4 on Thursday. Our first ride of the day was the New Mexico Rattle which was one of the few wooden coasters in the US that we haven't ridden. Cool looking station: YES!!!! Full seat dividers!!!! Thankfully, no hollow seat dividers here. It's a good thing too because with all of the side-to-side motions on this coaster, it would've been a once-and-done for me if it had hollow dividers. We wound up with 10 rides on NM Rattler that day. I wouldn't call it a favorite, but it was a fun ride. After the past few days, we were starting to get sick of Galaxi coasters: Rich took a solo ride on Cliffhanger since I'm not crazy about drop rides. I rode the drop towers at Joyland and Western Playland so I had more than my share of them anyway. We did ride the Rocky Mountain Rapids flume ride since it looked like a good one. I didn't have my camera at the time, but we saw a sign in the station that wasn't very customer friendly. It said "This ride(and others) will close promptly at closing regardless of your place in line". Sounds like they take after Mt. Olympus with their ridiculous closing policies. If they want the rides to close on time, they should judge the line and close it when appropriate instead of saying "too bad" to the customers in line. Not very customer friendly there, Cliff's! We didn't stay to closing to see how they handled it. Our next stop was Itz which is within walking distance from Cliff's to take a ride on their Miner Mike coaster. On the way to our hotel in Pecos, TX, we encountered a rather nasty storm near Rosewell, NM. Here's a picture of it in the distance before we got to it.

Our first stop of the day was Oasis Lanes in El Paso, TX for a quick ride on their Cobra Coaster. We then went to check out the former site of Western Playland in El Paso. About 2 years ago they moved the park to Sunland Park, NM. Here we are arriving in New Mexico which is state #45 visited for us. Only 5 more to go! The 7-10 evening shift was spent at Western Playland's new location in Sunland Park. It was Dollar Night where you could either pay $1 admission and $1 per ride or $9 for POP. We went with the POP. They also had many food items for $1 which we took advantage of such as drinks, snow cones, popcorn, pizza slices, and hot dogs. Most of those items were regularly between $2.50 and $5.00 so it was a good deal. There wasn't much to do at this park for 3 hours, but they do have some room to expand so hopefully they'll do that in the future. They certainly do have some beautiful scenery at the park with all the mountains as a backdrop. Looks just like the old entrance! El Bandito coaster: Miner coaster:

No, Hornet(aka Mayan Mindbender) isn't open yet. They still had yet to build the station and control panel at the time we were there. We probably missed it by a matter of weeks.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the Texas Tornado, but it actually was a pretty fun ride. The trains were decent as well. I could see it being awful if it had OTSR's, but with lap bars, it's fun.

We spent this day from 10 am open to 10 pm close at Six Flags over Texas. Our first stop was the Canyon Blaster kiddie coaster. Adults normally can't ride this one without a child, but we met up with our PR contact from the park who was nice enough to allow us to ride. From there, it went downhill. Tony Hawk's Big Spin--closed! Mr. Freeze--closed! Yup, we're definitely at a Six Flags park! Shortly after we saw Mr. Freeze running, we got in line. Since it's indoors and we're not familiar with the queue, we didn't know how long it was. We waited 40 minutes hardly moving at all and were nowhere close to getting on so we bailed without riding. We were able to see at that point that they were only using one side of the station which meant we would've had at least 40 minutes more of waiting if we had stayed. We normally won't pay the rip-off prices for a Flash Pass, but I wanted to ride Mr. Freeze and getting a Flash Pass was the only way it was going to happen. So, we bit the bullet and bought a regular Flash Pass. Our friends who we were with didn't want to join us so unfortunately we had to keep splitting up with them throughout the day when our ride times came up. It was miserably hot and humid out that day so they were doing a brisk business on their refill souvenir bottles. Every drink stand we passed had people 20 deep waiting for their refills. Unlike SFGAd where they have a ride op and a security guard at the ride entrances who won't allow you past with loose articles, SFOT only has an op at the entrances and they don't stop people from entering the line with loose articles. We saw many annoyed people with loose articles in the station(especially the drink bottles) who either had to not ride or wound up throwing them out. New for 2008--Tony Hawk's Big Spin: Tracy, Drake, and me: One of the best coasters in the park, Shockwave: One of the worst wooden coasters we've ever ridden, Texas Giant: Titan is an awesome ride and was my 300th coaster back in 2001: La Vibora: Superman, Batman, and Mr. Freeze: Brad and Drake with all the goodies they won playing the games:

Monday morning started out with a tour of Rangers Stadium in Arlington, TX. It turns out that we were the only people there for the 11 am tour so it was just the 2 of us. This tour was much better than the Red Sox tour we took in December where we hardly got to see anything. We would've like to see a game, but they were just arriving back in town this day. In the evening, we headed to Wonderland Park in Amarillo, TX. They have unusual hours during the week in that they're only open from 7-10. They normally don't include the Fantastic Journey dark ride and TX Tornado coaster in the POP, but we were able to purchase a special handstamp which isn't sold to the public that allowed us unlimited rides on both plus free mini golf. Fantastic Journey was quite a long dark ride and was very well maintained. Unfortunately, we only had time to ride it once. We got 6 rides on the TX Tornado, but they needed about 8 riders to dispatch and it wasn't easy getting that. The park seemed fairly busy, but none of the rides had lines. Unfortunately, their new coaster, Hornet, was still a few weeks away from opening. We had ridden it indoors as the Mayan Mindbender at Astroworld, but it would've been nice to ride at Wonderland as well. Between all of the rides we went on and the mini golf, the 3 hours just flew by and it was closing time before we knew it. When they say closing time is at 10, they mean it. They were turning off the lights on Big Coaster before we even got off of the last train of the night. We had a really good time and would definitely return to this park. Cyclone coaster: Fantastic Journey dark ride: Texas Tornado: Big Coaster: Hornet coaster: Excellent mini golf course: It's the Wonder Wheel!

Since we had time to kill before Joyland opened for their 7-10 shift at night, we checked out the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, TX. It's basically a bunch of Cadillas buried in a field that people are encouraged to add graffiti to. For the evening, we visited Joyland in Lubbock, TX. Unlike Wonderland where the 3 hours flew by, we got bored fairly quickly at Joyland. We did get to chat the the owner, David Dean, briefly. He was a nice guy who seemed excited about adding Greezed Lightnin from Astroworld to the park. If and when that happens, it will definitely make the park worth visiting again. Rich on the funky waterslide-type ride: Little Coaster runs just like a smaller version of High Speed Thrill Coaster at Knoebels. It was our favorite coaster at the park!

I should be in that Voodoo seat next to Rich, but I was stuck working instead. We tried to ride Voodoo last night for some wedding anniversary rides since Lake Compounce wasn't open, but the severe thunderstorm kept us from riding. Rich actually has the sole honor of seeing you 4 times. You didn't stick around Dorney for the night ERT which is when I was there so I've only seen you 3 times. That's makes me tied with Craig. I'd much rather be beating Craig since that probably won't be the case much longer.