Coaster Palooza

Merry Christmas Soren! That was a nice family Christmas. Everyone was dressed really nice. We usually don't get all dressed up for this in my family.

Hey guys, looks like a great trip! I take a couple days off and my first post is on page 11. :shock: This thread is so huge! I'm looking forward to the rest of the trip.

^^We did the Star Trek the Experience a couple years ago before the change. We really wanted to go to it, but just ran out of time. ^Thanks for the info on the 3D glasses. My wife and I saw Polar Express at the IMAX (not in 3D) here in San Jose last year and we really liked the experience. That's why we were looking forward to this. The IMAX rides are simulators in IMAX film style. It is similar to Back to the Future ride at Universal, but this was even worse than that!

Come on Wally, break open the bottle and let's see it.

I don't understand how people can send things out with errors on it. I just received this email from PGA and it keeps saying VIP pass for 2005, not 2006. It says 2006 at some points and then 2005! I know it is a little petty, but it is friggin' annoying when people don't proofread their sh%$! EMAIL below: This is your last chance to buy 2006 season passes at our low holiday sale price and pay nothing until March! Visit the Great America web site to learn more about this limited-time offer Lock in our early-bird fall price without spending a dime until March 2006. You will never find lower prices on 2005 VIP Passes than through this special offer. You'll get instant access to a printable holiday certificate suitable for gift giving. No interest, no extra charges, and no special fees for postponing payment. Buy your 2005 VIP passes today and you'll pay the lowest price (it's guaranteed never to be lower) AND we won't charge your credit card until March. There are no interest charges and no special fees to participate.. This offer expires December 31 -- order today for the very best deal on 2005 passes Great America VIP Pass holders can visit the park as many times as they want from March until October PLUS they get a variety of special passholder-only park privileges including free admission to Bonfante Gardens, free parking and discounts on food and beverages at Great America, and early access to Boomerang Bay Beach Club select days!! If you are planning to buy yourself or your family season passes for 2006, you will never find a better deal than through this special early-bird offer. This special offer will expire on December 31, 2005. If the links above do not work, visit: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bonfante Gardens Holiday Lights™ open thru December 23 Bonfante Gardens is proud to be the only Bay Area theme park open for holiday season entertainment. Holiday Lights is back for an expanded second season filled with twinkling lights, a decadent holiday feast, Santa’s Workshop, themed rides and more! New this year, Bonfante Gardens Holiday Lights™ features North Pole Ice Palace, a 40-foot by 80-foot ice rink, where families can glide, twirl and spin during 30-minute skate sessions. Once participants have finished lacing up their ice skates, they can enjoy a holiday train ride on The North Pole Express, the fastest way to get to the North Pole to see Santa, or drive vintage cars through the 12 Days of Christmas on the South County Holiday Drive. Holiday Lights is open until December 23. Join us for this memorable evening event from 4pm to 9pm! Bonfante Gardens Holiday Lights™ is a separate ticketed event. Learn more about Bonfante Garden Holiday Lights

I don't remember a 3 part adventure, but we got tickets to ride all the IMAX rides, see one IMAX film, and do some other things there as well as Mandalay Bay. We didn't see a laser show and there wasn't an elevator in the IMAX rides. We saw the safari 3D film.

We went to Las Vegas from 12/9-12/11 and stayed at Luxor. The hotel is really nice, but I expected more from the IMAX experiences. We arrived on Friday night and went right to the Luxor from the airport. There was nothing really incredible to talk about for this night except that I broke even on gambling. Saturday morning, Gyendolynne had a massage scheduled at the Oasis spa. She said it was great to be pampered. I decided to take in some more gambling at this point. I played video poker and won $250 on double deuces on only $20. That pretty much made the trip since we were only going to do the IMAX stuff, have lunch and see King Tut’s tomb for the rest of the day. We had a helicopter tour planned for 5pm. I can’t tell you how disappointed we were in the IMAX rides. Don’t do this at all! We saw one IMAX show, it was the safari one. This film was dirty and the 3D effects weren’t great because the film had some overlapping problems. All in all, we weren’t too happy with this. The helicopter ride got the bad taste of the IMAX rides out of our mouths though. It was great to see the strip and Stratosphere tower from the air! It was a short trip. Onto the photos! Another random photo Random Luxor photo Our only break away from Luxor and Gyendolynne gets locked up at Excalibur! Happy picture back at Luxor We took our helicoper ride and had someone take our picture in front of their xmas tree afterward. and really down right silly! Kinda goofy.... We are a little excited about the 3D glasses Onto the IMAX theater, hopefully this is better. We won't let it ruin our day though. By the second one we were not amused! Waiting to ride our first one, spirits were up! IMAX Rides were terrible MMM...First drink of the trip!

First Coaster: Goliath @ Magic Mountain Last Coaster: Giant Dipper @ Belmont Park Highlights: - Every year we go to SFMM for Gyendolynne’s birthday in April. - Our big trip (Coaster Palooza) of the year was to Detroit. We went to a Tiger’s game, Michigan’s Adventure, Cedar Point, an Indian’s game, and Geauga Lake, along with a couple of Hard Rock Cafes. - TPR’s first meet at SFMM – Beach, B&M’s, and BBQ. - SFMM and Knott’s Berry Farm in October for the Halloween fun! - Sea World San Diego, Belmont Park in December - Las Vegas in December - Meeting Robb and Elissa along with many people from TPR along the way! - The usual local parks – PGA, SFMW, and SCBB

^Okay, so 15-16 year old girls, might be better? We all know Robb digs the young ones. That is a great Trip Report.

I love DirecTV in California. I can see why people in the east don't like it with their weather, but out here is no problem. I have had it for 5 years and we won't go back to cable again. I also must suggest getting some type of DVR. It is the only way to go!

Nice video Ted! I like the dragons on their first date. The background tongue is too funny.

Congratulations Wally and Karen. Way to go! Now the real adventure begins.

My list is a little long, but I love all these movies: Christmas Story (I will watch all 24 hours of it, or until my wife tells me to turn it off!) Planes, Trains, and Automobiles It’s a Wonderful Life National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation Grinch (Cartoon) All the old 30 minute shorts (Santa Claus is coming to town, Rudolph the red-nose reindeer, Frosty the snowman, etc.) Home Alone, the original Elf, slowly becoming a classic Polar Express, I saw this last year in the IMAX theatre. It was awesome! I’m sure there are some more, but this is my list for now.

Man Wally, if you can find that house, can I plant some seedlings in my back yard? I guess Bud really DOES grow on trees. I always thought money did HMMMM. I picked house #4, but it is what you, and ultimately Karen want because it is the two of you coming home every night to that place. When you have a bad day at work, it is nice to come home to your happy place and realize why you put up with the grief you do. We bought our house in February 2001. It was on the market for one weekend. We saw it on Saturday, told my realtor that night, he went out to it on Sunday and made an offer. We sealed the deal Monday night. Life moves quick! I continue my good wishes to you both on finding the best place.

I have met a few people and attended a couple events. Saw Wally and his family at PGA in October. Robb and I throwing back a beverage during our exclusive viewing of the Europe trip. Thanks for the hospitality again! The group at the first event. Beaches, B&Ms and BBQ. Great wings!

I totally dig the snow pics. Thanks for posting them! That looks like such a fun trip and a great suite.

We had a couple at Gordon Biersch at the airport and at Hard Rock Cafe I drank Sam Adams Oktoberfest. I liked the Oktoberfest. I had it last year too. Gordon Biersch at the San Jose airport during our 2 and a half hour delay!

I have to agree with Robb on the fact it is how you budget your money. I have my vices of shot glasses, Hard Rock Cafes, etc., but if I were to look even a little more closely at what I spend money on, I am sure that I could do a little more. One of the most recent things I do is I take the light rail to work instead of driving and I bring my lunch. It saves at least $6 a day in gas and possibly $5 a day for lunch, that's $55/week! :shock: I also look into cheap airfares and use frequent flyer miles. It is also how you budget your vacation time. I have heard Robb talk about instead of taking the Memorial Day off, combine it with a couple vacation days and you have nearly 5 days to go to a few parks. Yes, Memorial Day at an amusement park is crowded, but the other days around might not be. You should also take red-eyes to the east coast, if you're from the west, because that will give you one more day. We also have season passes to almost everything. There are some other ways to get tickets too. You just need a creative mind.

^^^^Wally, Unfortunately we didn't attend the beer school. Hopefully next time we go we will get there. We wanted to hit all the shows and see as much as we could. The park closed at 6pm on Saturday. Good luck on buying the house. It is one of the top 3 most stressful things you will ever do! ^^^Soren, Thanks man, we try to be as entertaining as possible.

Great Trip Report Ted! We are looking forward to our trip out there in January. I liked the "head up my ass" photo.

^^^^Ted, Didn't really notice his beer gut, or were you talking about mine??? ^Gyendolynne was saying, "Bono has his own plane, he wouldn't be waiting in the Southwest terminal at San Jose international for his plane flight!" I agree he wasn't the real Bono, but he created a bit of a stir. I just had a problem with him signing autographs.

^We saw South Park too and laughed our asses off at that.

Photos continued. It was this girl's 21st birthday. Yes, that motorcycle is hanging there. Yep, just the two of us. MMMM a hurricane. We're here at Hard Rock Cafe, San Diego, not La Jolla. The beach, brrrr, it is cold. A shot of the carousel. Hi, I'm a dork waving toward the camera for no apparent reason. 80 year anniversary. It wasn't windy at all! Onto Belmont Park. The sky ride tower looking like a Christmas tree. A nice sunset. Sky Ride. A nice way to end the day. This is actually the shark tank. You can see one in the bottom. Pink Flamingos Penguins This cat jump was cool. Jumping poodle The dog is lifting a ton! Pets Rule set! We thought this was actually a pretty good show. The pets were awesome. Suiting up the Clydesdales for their tour. Riding Shamu 2 Shamus

Our trip started out a little rough. The plane out of San Jose was delayed one hour, then another 20 minutes, then another 40 minutes, then another hour, and finally 20 more minutes. We were supposed to leave at 7:25, but flew out at 9:50! We waited at Gordon Biersch and had a few beers. While we were there, we noticed this guy that looked like Bono from U2. We sat by him because it was the only seat around. Before that I was holding up the wall for a while. I was facing Gyendolynne and she was facing Bono’s table. There was quite a ruckus because of him. Everyone was taking pictures, including us. We didn’t think it was him, but what the heck? The only problem I had was that he was signing autographs. People would bring books up to him and other things. It just didn’t seem right. If it was Bono, then great, but I doubt it was him. We arrived at midnight in San Diego and headed straight to Hard Rock Café. They were closed and it was raining! We were so hungry because we didn’t eat since the flight was delayed a certain amount of time every time they would post. On the way to the hotel, we were looking for a place to eat. The area had a ton of strip clubs and other “adult” entertainment. It wasn’t the nicest area to be in, but I figured once we get to the hotel, everything would be okay and it was. We picked up Jack in the Box right outside the hotel. After checking in, we finally fell asleep around 1am. The next day we woke up at 7am to get ready, have breakfast, and head to Sea World. Hopefully today would be better than yesterday. Sea World was only 5 minutes from the hotel. We used our platinum passes, which we processed that day, for the free parking and reservations at all the shows. After mapping out our shows, we headed to Journey to Atlantis. There was no line. While we were waiting the ride broke down, and then shut down! We haven’t ridden this yet and it was very disappointing at the time. We went to Wild Arctic was right next door. The simulator we got into broke down within the first minute of the ride. I was thinking, “Great, what next!” They took us out of that ride and into another simulator. I have to say, good move by the ride ops. The ride was okay, but the walk through area was so much better. The polar bears were awesome. They were feeding them at the time. It was neat to see them dive into the water. Now we had all the shows scheduled. We saw Clyde and Seamore show, the dolphin show, Shamu, Pets Rule, and the Haunted Lighthouse 4D. We got on Journey to Atlantis later on in the day. We weren’t too impressed with it. The Clydesdales saddled up and toured the place. The hospitality room was very cool and refreshing. 8) We took the taste test while we were in there. The way the day turned out, we were able to see all the attractions, shows and ride the rides. It was a great day. The platinum passes made us feel like we were VIPs! This was our first trip to a Sea World and it was a great one! We have been to both Busch Gardens and we are looking forward to going to them next year with these passes. I highly recommend them. We headed to Belmont Park to ride the Giant Dipper. The website didn’t have their hours for December up yet and I didn’t know if they were open or not. When we got there, we were able to park right under the Dipper. The person taking the tickets said they were open until 10pm. We got our ride in, checked out the beach, and then headed to La Jolla for Hard Rock Café. The HRC there was hosting a private party and no one could be seated after 5pm. It was 7. :shock: I got my shot glass and headed to the HRC in San Diego. Man, San Diego gets packed! After dinner at HRC, we headed back to the porn hotel. The flight home was unadventurous, thank goodness. I hope I didn’t bore you with the report. Here are the pictures. SHAMU! Yay, petting dolphins. Watch Gyendolynne, they bite...hehe I thought this was a cool picture of the Seamore. The Clyde and Seamore show. Another high jump and high jumps. Lots of big splashes. The Dolphin Show. Damnit! Open the door. Welcome to Beer School Please say, "Hi, I'm Mr. Ed!" They were cleaning the equipment for their tour around the park. Photo for you Wally! The clydesdales. Watch it polar beer! Another aquarium shot. Diving polar beer. I liked this picture. It was feeding time The polar beers were cool. Journey to Atlantis. Tada! It flies AND lands. This was cool having the animals out and about. Not a good shot, but that's our hotel. I took it from the same place I took the previous pic. One of the few "adult" entertainment places around our hotel. Is that guy lost? Our beer. Another shot of Bono. This has a little more detail of his face. My Gordon Biersch, and Bono signing autographs! Bono's harem Wow, look at the line up waiting for Bono's autograph....Just kidding. This IS the Southwest cattle drive. Dude, you might be Bono, put your fingers down.

That's a very nice, and clean, place you have there Carlos. Hopefully you'll get some ornaments to decorate that tree.