Jew

There is at least one top star tour on the fair circuit.

The 1 Euro chicken burgers in Germany ruled! Chicken Patty+Jack in the Box taco sauce=heaven!

USH...Today. And Saturday. And Sunday. And Monday. And Wednesday. And Thursday.

Posting a work report would get me fired... That softball volunteer looks like she could kill you with her bare hands... -Joey "stupid NDA's" Mandel

^^Grr...you beat me to it!

I'm in a bunch of photos on the site already, so here is these... Me at Haunt in 2004... Me at Haunt in 2003...

^^Except when even .0000000000000000000000000001 inches of rain fall from the sky...

Holy sh*t! It's $60!! *IF* I end up not getting rehired at Haunt and going to HHN...for $60 this had better be the best damn Haunted theme park EVER or I will be pissed.

I walked right by you in front of the flinstones games area (that is assuming it was you with the TPR shirt)... -Joey "was busy away from Mummy today" Mandel

That's a little bit disturbing, but ok... -Joey "will spend all day hidden doing backstage stuff" Mandel

So I’m finally writing the second TR from Europe… Anyways, today would be the start of one of the major themes of the European trips: Parks in the middle of nowhere! After a detour due to a road closure, we found bobbejaanland. Like Robb said, we really didn’t know what to expect of this place. I had heard absolutely nothing about it except that it had the Gerstauler 95 drop coaster. Thankfully the place turned out to be awesome! After being Jewish and not buying myself a map (yes…they make you pay for maps!), we walked around for a bit and then decided to wait for “Typhoon” to open. This ride looked like it was either going to kill us or be lots of fun! Luckily for me, since I didn’t take that 3rd ride that turned out to beat the hell out of Robb, Dan, and Elissa…it was lots of fun! This ride was the first vertical lift I had been on, so when it slowed down towards the top it scared the f*ck out of me! The view from the drop, with no track below you is really cool! The rest of the ride felt like a wild mouse with a loop and the barrel rolls thrown in at the end. Definitely more fun than I expected, but not “OMG WOW!” I think these rides could be great additions for smaller parks as long as they are well maintained. Then we wandered over to the parks Wild Mice. They have two Wild Mice coasters that are mirrored and next to each other and they are called “Speedy Bobs.” I was hoping to be a credit whore and get on both sides, but only one side was open =( Anyways…the ride itself was one of the better mice I have been on! It was hardly braked until the end, and had a pop of psycho airtime. It even stole Elissa’s sunglasses! After that was a Vekoma suspended roller coaster “Air Race”. Everything about it looks like an Arrow, except it is a Vekoma with awesome airplane themed cars! I can’t really say anything bad about this coaster, but I can’t really say anything good about it either. It was very much just an “ehh…whatever” coaster. Not too fast, not too slow, not a lot of forces, yet still kind of fun. Then came some awesome Hawaiian pizza, followed by the start of another trip trend: being stupid and going on the water rides! They had one of those “wet/dry” slides (a la Yosemite Sam’s Sierra Falls @ SFMM) that ended up getting me SOAKED, but since it was one of the ones with like a quadruple down the airtime was sweet. We also rode the raft ride, which apparently used to have some sort of crazy windmill lift and a big drop. Even without those, the ride turned out to be really fun. It had a wave machine section (something not really seen on American raft rides) and a whirlpool section (another first for me). I’m not a huge raft ride fan by any means, but this one was fun. Didn’t soak us either, which is always a plus. I think after that we went to the other side of the park, where we ran into some of the coolest rides ever! First of was the “Okie Doki” coaster, which is a Vekoma roller skater on crack. This ride definitely wasn’t a top 10 ride, but it was a great family coaster. Not too fast (or too slow), no huge drops (not too small either), and a SLIGHT bit of airtime. I’d even go as far as calling it a Vekoma junior mine train (which is a good thing)! Across from “Oki Doki” was the coolest ride ever! I don’t even remember the real name, but we referred to it as the “beaner shooting ride.” What do I mean by that? Exactly what it sounds like! It’s a shooting dark ride where you go around shooting Mexicans, Confederates, Indians, and there was even spousal abuse! To top it all off…it was the legendary “Bench: The Ride!!!!” Makes me wish SFMM really was getting “Bench: The Ride!” By far the coolest dark ride ever. Then there was the indoor log flume, which was like the log ride at KBF with cooler effects…at least I think that was the story. The last coaster of the day was “Revolution.” Who knew Vekoma could make so many good rides? This thing had a LOOONG train, a LOOOONG spiral lift, and then a bunch of turns in the dark with crazy lighting effects. Also on the lift there was a projector on the ceiling showing a black hole and even more crazy lighting effects. I don’t know what to say about this ride except “WTF?...this thing is cool and I’m not sure why!” The park also had a couple of HUSS flat rides next to each other, both of which were firsts for me. First up was the giant Frisbee. It’s a fun flat ride, but it had a short cycle. I think we got one full swing at the top before it started to slow back down. Then it was the fly-away. Extremely uncomfortable, but seriously one of the most disorienting flat rides I have ever been on. This thing really takes your stomach for a ride! I don’t think I’ll ever go on one of these again, lol. We did other things like the potato sack slide and the strange funhouse/kiddie area with odd show things like a bear watching us on TV….but I don’t really remember where in the day we did those things. The last thing I remember is the parking arm not wanting to work for Robb, then magically working when the employee came out (which of course made Robb look like an idiot, so it was awesome!). Overall, this park turned out to be awesome. It’s nicely landscaped, really big, has good operations, has good food, and LOTS of rides to occupy a full day. Just don’t try and pronounce the name…

USH Mummy crew (when guests don't screw things up). -Joey "not bias at all" Mandel

^I'm guessing he'll need a fastpass to get a kiss from the lady gay though.

^Dan's the pathetic Haunt enthusiast. I can actually say that I get paid to be there every night... -Joey "stupid HHN lover" Mandel

Speaking of European music... Would any of the European readers happen to know the techno song they use for the preshow of the character show @ Walibi Belgium and also at the pirate show @ Heide Park?

I want one for my grandparents pool.

B&M uses Giovanola in Europe...

Universal because they pay me.

The day before, we got into Paris, rented a car, and drove to a hotel about a block from the park. The next morning we were at the park for opening, and headed straight to...the SLC. We needed the credit and figured the line was going to get long, so better now than wait an hour for a stupid SLC. Oddly enough, this turned out to be the best SLC of the trip. That's not exactly saying too much, but this one definitely had the least amount of head bashing. It's still an SLC though, so... After that it was off to what would temporarily become my #1 woodie: Loop Garou. Who would have guessed Vekoma could make good wooden coasters? The ride shuffles a bit, but it's fun, carries speed throughout the ride, has some forces, and the last two drops on the ride offer SICK airtime. We ended up riding this a couple times during the day. Then it was off to Turbine, a Swartzkoph fly-wheel shuttle looper. I like this one more than Monte because it is enclosed. It really does seem faster and makes the loop more disorienting when enclosed! We rode this twice during the day. We explored the back side of the park, stumbling upon their awesome 2nd generation Intamin drop tower called "Dalton Terror." Not only did the queue have the coolest music (a western remix of "fight for your right (to party)", this drop tower seemed like it waited till the last possible second to hit the brakes. Typical intamin drop tower airtime down till almost the very bottom. Then it was off to what I thought was the coolest ride in the park: 'Challenge of Tutankhamon.' This is the new generation of Sally dark rides, with the trackless ride system. I really wish more parks would get a ride like this, because the themeing was awesome (it had real fire and three different endings!) and shoot-em-up rides are always fun. We ended up riding twice and saw two of the endings. They also had a Vekoma mine train (which I completely forgot about when I initially wrote this!). I wasn't good, but it wasn't bad either. Just an average mine train with two lifts. The last credit in the park was a boomerang. What can you say about a boomerang? I held my head foward the whole time, and only got nailed in the chin once...but it's still a boomerang. Some other things we did were ride the log flume, which was pretty cool except for the disgusting water (lots of the water rides in Europe didn't exactly have the highest quality water...)! It was one of the ones with a turntable that sends the log down a drop and some of the flume backwards. Pretty fun. They also had a teacups ride that felt more like a whip. We (Robb and I) couldn't spin the damn thing at all it was so tight, but it kept whipping us around! The last thing I remember is psycho bumper cars. These were fast, there were no rules, and the cycle must have been like 7-10 minutes! The best part was that the operator hopped into a car and was joining in on the fun too! Lots of head on collisions and what not happened, and it was awesome! That's about it... 1 down, like 21 more to go. -Joey

^PLEASE post the POV of your fall! Anyways...Dave summed it up pretty well. It was a great trip with some great coasters, but most importantly it was done with great people. I'll have TR's and photos later on too. A big thank you to Robb & Elissa for organizing it, and also to Dan, Dave, and Mer for being cool. A big thank you also goes out to all the people we met who showed us around, gave us tips, having fun, and so on, and so on. -Joey "I miss our German chicks" Mandel

I blame Intamin. Having worked at numerous parks with their rides (and worked on a couple of their rides myself), I refuse to believe they can design/build/program/etc. a reliable ride! While Robb has a good point about parks asking too much, Intamin shouldn't be promising things they know they might not be able to deliver. If Intamin signs a contract saying "we can build a 450ft tall ride and have it open on (insert date)," how is it the parks fault if the ride was rushed? Of course, having dealt with Six Flags budgets, I can see how this could have been the fault of an over worked, under payed maintenance team without the proper tools they need to fix the ride right.

^I didn't know Spongebob was Mexican...

Robb: Use the Tinkerbell picture on IMDB...

They do have to replace the OTSR's though.

^The whole show attracts nothing but nerds!! People waiting 2 hours to demo the new Zelda game! Even worse to see the PS3!