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...Japan?

I LOVE Afterburn. The pacing is just relentless, and the way it interacts with the walkway is very cool. Also, the queue allowed me see what this cheesy "Dinosaurs Alive" business was all about, without having to pay for it. I wish I could go back and un-ride Carolina Cyclone, though, seriously.

Tell that to my bruised collar bones. X-Flight at SFGAM was fine for me, and those vests actually did lock, if I remember correctly. Also, i305 had the best vest restraints ever! They locked, but still felt very cushy.

I haven't read through all these pages, so someone might have answered already, but how were the vest restraints? I hope they're less restrictive than Wild Eagle.

According to my very accurate calculations, Dorney will build about 32 more coasters before 2040.

Carolina Cobra. The bass clef would be missing the two dots, but you can just pretend they're there. Also, Afterburn's batwing from above is clearly an alto/tenor clef. With a lot of patience, two planes might line up next to the cobra roll or two upstop wheels

Carolina Cobra. The bass clef would be missing the two dots, but you can just pretend they're there. Also, Afterburn's batwing from above is clearly an alto/tenor clef.

I stitched this together from multiple photos, so it's got a few visible seams. I thought it turned out pretty well, though. ^clicky Edit: Added another pic

When I rode it, the ride op called me out and was like "#1, you just went the highest!" I must have misinterpreted that, because I thought he was getting mad at me for snapping, so I stopped. lol

As I was riding Shockwave, it reminded me that the Togo standup at King's Island was almost my very first coaster, but I was too afraid to ride it at the time. Good thing I chickened out, because that probably would have been a pretty traumatic experience to 11-year-old me. lol Yes, that was very odd. I walked back to Hurler, thinking "Wow, Grizzly must be a long ride. Wait, this part looks a lot like Hurler. Oh, that's because it is. How did I walk past Grizzly without seeing the entrance?" Then I walked over to the go kart area before finally realizing the gift shop had an exit in the back. Also, I forgot to mention Windseeker. It's a pretty relaxing ride, but I spent most of it thinking "Hmm, I wonder what would happen if that single shoulder bolt that's holding me in just sheared off. Would I fall all the way to the ground, or get saved by the dampers attaching me to the surrounding seats?"

KD was dead today. Walk-ons for everything in the park. It looks like going on a Sunday between spring break and summer break was the perfect choice. I thought all the rides in the park were pretty good, except Hurler. Carowinds and Kentucky Kingdom took much better care of theirs. Ok, maybe Anaconda sucked a little bit because of its headbanging, but I did legitimately like the Togo standup; though it was rough, it still had some nice airtime. The Crypt: ran a decent program, and made me realize that I don't actually hate Top Spins. I just had a bad experience on Tomb Raider at King's Island, which hung upside down for WAY too long and punched me in the crotch unexpectedly. Flight of Fear: Easily the best ride in the park for me. I'd put it on par with the one at King's Island. The exit of the corkscrew at the end gives me such a weird feeling, as if I'm sitting sideways for a second before my brain catches up to the fact that I didn't just go through a banked turn after that corkscrew, but I'm actually sitting right-side up on the brake run. FoF is the only ride to ever give me such a feeling of true disorientation. Dominator: Definitely a front seat ride. It gave me a slight headache, but was still worth a re-ride. Avalanche: Pretty fun, and actually a little scary going around the turns and seeing the ground below, because of how narrow the trough is. Volcano: The forceful launches really took me by surprise. It was a great ride, and pretty well themed compared to the rest of the park. Grizzly: I really liked this one. It was well-paced and had some strong laterals through the turns. It was rough, but not painfully so. Drop Tower: I'm not sure if I'm just getting acclimated to the feeling of drop towers, but after riding the awesome Mach Tower at BGW the day before, this one didn't feel very intense to me. Nice view of i305, though. Backlot: Really fun, and pretty intense for a family coaster. I even greyed out a bit in the helix. Ricochet: standard mouse. Not much else to say there Rebel Yell: It wasn't bad, but if they tore it down, I wouldn't even notice it was gone. Woodstock Express: little airtime machine. These rides are always great, and definitely not just for small kids. After riding all 3 US gigas, I think I would rank them Fury > i305 > MF. i305 definitely felt smoother than Fury, though I was expecting i305 to be more intense than it actually was, like Skyrush or Maverick intense, but it was much more tame than either of those two rides, in my experience.

Were you there before opening? Did they do a big reveal or ceremony for Tempesto? I liked how Tempesto would stop in the station at exactly the right spot every time so the train could unload faster, without needing to be "dialed in" to line up with the loading gates. I rode: Tempesto - 2 Apollo -2 Griffon - 3 Europe in the Air - 1 Alpengeist - 2 Verbolten - 2 Darkastle - 1 Loch Ness - 1 Mach Tower - 1 (in the order that I first rode them) Speaking of Europe in the Air, I once heard someone describe it as "Experiencing what it would be like to forget to bring your glasses on an aerial tour of Europe." That was pretty accurate. lol Also, I would love to get stuck on Griffon's top turnaround. Seriously, that view is just crazy. I thought Dollywood had some of the nicest scenery, but this far outclassed it, IMO.

I visited Carowinds for the first time on Friday. I didn't realize I was going on school music day, so it was pretty crowded. When I first saw the school kids filing into the park, I thought everyone was carrying selfie sticks, but they were actually violin bows. People were lugging giant cellos and upright basses through the park in the morning, which was pretty funny. Almost all the kids left at 6:00 pm, leaving 4 hours of really short lines. All the coasters were open at some point during the day, just not all at once, and I finally managed to snag the last ride on my list, the right side of Thunder Road, about an hour before park closing. (No, I did not ride the small kiddie coaster, but I probably would have if I had been under 60" tall. So apparently if you're a tiny adult, you can ride without a child, and if you're a tall adult, then you need a kid to ride... Really? What'chu got against tall people, Carowinds? ) I got to the park about 20 minutes before opening, got on the first train of the day for Fury, and rode it 4 more times at night. What I liked: - It's very forceful. The airtime going through the banked dive and the following camelback were the best moments of the ride, IMO. - The ride ops were doing an amazing job of keeping people moving and preventing the trains from stacking. I've never seen a line move like that before. What looked like a 40 minute wait only took 15 minutes for me to reach the station. - There's a groove in the back of the seat for your spine. (It's the little things that count.) Didn't like: - It was a little bit rough when I rode in the middle rows, but I guess that's to be expected from a B&M giga. I haven't ridden Leviathan for comparison, though. Back seat rides were smoother in my experience, but still nowhere near as smooth as Intimidator. - Assigned seat rows, boo! In fact, they had assigned rows for most rides in the park, even when the lines were fairly short. I never ended up with a front seat ride on Fury, though I was able to request the back row once. I wish they'd just implement proper single rider lines, or let people skip the last section of a queue if they choose to be assigned a seat. Final impressions of the whole park: best ride: Afterburn worst rides: Vortex and Carolina Cyclone worst queue wait: Nighthawk with one train operation. biggest anticipointment: Oreo Churros. Really, I was not impressed. best wooden coaster: Woodstock Express (Yes I'm serious. This ride is actually pretty awesome)

Today was my first trip to BGW. I didn't have many expectations going into it. I just knew the basic layouts of their rides, and that's about it. I like just showing up to a park, walking around without a map, and discovering it for myself. I soon realized that this park was WAY bigger than I was anticipating, and even though they only have 6 major coasters, most of the ride entrances are really spread out. I definitely needed a map, but I ended up spending most of the day just wandering around and sightseeing. The way the rides interact with the surrounding walkways is really fantastic. When I stepped onto the path under Loch Ness Monser, I was kind of speechless. I had seen pictures of this area, with Loch Ness, Alpengeist, and Griffon all in view, but pictures really don't do justice to just how gorgeous that area of the park is, or the sheer scale of the rides towering overhead. Other notable scenic views in the park: The top of Griffon's lift, and Mach Tower. The bridge over Le Scoot and Alpengeist The bridge next to Big Bad 'Bolten's outdoor drop The inside of Das Festhaus. Their food is great too. I got to the park a few minutes later than I would have liked, and had to wait an hour for Tempesto. It was a great ride, probably even my favorite in the park. It's very smooth, and has some great airtime in both the front and the back. It's definitely not as much of a "showcase" ride as some of their other attractions, since they can't do a lot to make it interact with the path like they did with Griffon and Alpengeist, but I thought it still fit in nicely with the surrounding area. The only thing I didn't like was the restraint. The shin guard is SO close to the seat, For anyone with long legs, you'll probably have to point your toes like I did, just to keep your shins from being crushed when the lapbar closes. The lapbar rested in a really uncomfortable position for me, too, much closer to the knee than most rides, because my legs were angled so far upward. Also, trying to get into the right hand seat is basically equivalent to climbing in through the driver's side of a tiny car and maneuvering around the steering wheel to sit in the passenger's side. You definitely can't stand up straight as you're getting in and out; it's quite awkward. So anyway, it was pretty cold with drizzling rain all day today. I had on 3 shirts under my jacket, and 2 pairs of pants (yes really), and thick winter gloves, and I was still freezing. All the rides that weren't Tempesto had much shorter lines, in the 10-20 minute range. The water rides were all open, but I wasn't about to subject myself to that. Most people left by mid-afternoon, making all the rides walk-ons. I couldn't stand the cold rainy weather for much longer, though, and left the park just before dark. For anyone who managed to stay at the park today from open until closing, I admire your dedication.

Quick Queue is 40% off on the 25th, so that's definitely worth considering.

So are the crowds expected to be awful next Saturday?

^I only got to ride Deja Vu once, during its last year of operation. I was sad to see it go. It's is still on my top 10 steel list.

I don't know if it still has the same restraints, but the last time I rode it in 2009 I was too tall for them. They pressed down on my shoulders so hard I couldn't take a full breath, and every little jolt of the track would jerk my neck because my shoulders couldn't move.

2 trains on Mindbender. It still had a 25-30 minute line.

I rode namtaB today. It was really cool going through the first three inversions in reverse, especially the 0-g, which felt much faster than I remembered. I don't remember much about the rest of the ride, except just bracing for the corkscrew snaps and waiting for the ride to be over. It was a little rough, and I didn't feel the need to ride it again. Ninja was closed the whole time I was there (no big loss there). Daredevil Dive had the longest wait for me, at about 45 minutes, but most of the queues were about what I expected for an Easter Sunday, 15-30 minutes. Cyclone was a walk-on, and I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth it was. The last time I rode it in 2012 it was shaking pretty violently.

Bergen & Kurt broke rule #1 of TAR You have to learn to drive stick before the race! I guess "know how to swim" would be even more important, but that's probably on the official qualification list. You really can't just assume that the show will provide you with rental cars that all have automatic transmission, though. It seems like there's always at least one team that struggles with this. Jeff & Jackie are one of my favorite teams, but I have kind of mixed feelings on how they pretended not to know about the other team's lost bag. I know it's every team for themselves, but still, it's probably not what I would have done. Then again, if I were on this show, I'd probably try too hard to be nice to people and let the other teams walk all over me, so... Also, once again, poor Blair. I feel so bad for him. lol oh, and the "stack" challenge would be really cool as an upcharge game at a theme park, like that impossible "balance on the rope ladder" thing.

I would totally go to Caturday Cafe. Looks like my kind of place. lol

^Any trailer with Boston music is an immediate win in my book

and they won the "date night" thing. Awkward, lol. They're probably glad they gave it to the newly-engaged couple instead. Also, Truckstop Love really picked up the pace this week, yay. This episode really needed a disclaimer at the beginning: "In a moment, you are about to see a man dual-wielding selfie sticks. He is a trained professional. Do not try what you are about to see at home, or anywhere else for that matter."

I knew it! There is no better place for this ride to debut than at Action Park.