ahecht

Nope, that's actually Step by Step. After seeing this thread, I actually had my computer record the very next Step by Step episode and used that recording to grab a screen shot. Which meant I had to watch 5 minutes of Step by Step. Oh, the sacrifices I'll make for TPR.

In order of my interest: 1. Superman: Escape at WBMW 2. The Voyage at Holiday World 3. Black Mamba at Phantasialand 4. Goliath at SFoG 5. Expedition Everst at Disney's Animal Kingdom 6. Unnamed Flyer at SFMM 7. Unnamed Woodie at SFGAdv 8. Speed Monster at TusenFryd

Rides I hope they save: Ultra Twister -- the only one of its kind in North America, and a hell of a ride too. Viper -- A great Schwartzkopf. Truely a classic. Serial Thriller -- By far the smoothest SLC I've ever ridden. I never thought I'd say this, but SAVE THE SLC! Rides they won't save: Texas Cyclone -- I honestly can't see how moving a wooden coaster in as beaten up as this can be cost effective. Greased Lightnin' -- Six Flags already has a shuttle loop named Greased Lightnin' sitting in storage behind Marine World, I doubt they'd want another one. Rides they will probably save anyway: Batman: The Escape -- Heck, it's already been to three parks, why not four?

What a coincidence, I just saw Space Cowboys on tv last night. I love the shots of Viper with the jet-fighter sound effects dubbed in. The greast thing is, they managed to actually make the ride look rougher than it really is! Also, don't forget that Magic Mountain showed up in Encino Man. Finally, here is a picture of Magic Mountain by the Sea:

GIven all the trouble SFoG has had with their transfer track, we might be seeing serial dual stations (unload/load) instead of parallel stations. We all know how much serial dual stations helped X...

Best: Any of the S:RoSs. Nothing like insane airtime. Space Mountain DL. I love rides that get faster and faster as you approach the end, and the new backwards tunnel effect is great. Goliath SFMM. Can you say HELIX OF DOOOOOM? Lightning Racer. Did we win? Worst: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad DL. The whole section after the last lift is a snore-fest. Two false drops and a surprisingly slow dip through the dinosaur. The ride would probably be better if the whole last segment was removed. Roar SFA. After a fairly smooth ride, the final turn into the brakes is mind numbingly, bone crushingly rough. Ouch. Viper SFMM. The ride comes to what should be a brake run, but isn't, and then dips under the station to the actual brake run. It's the kind of thing I'd do in RollerCoaster Tycoon when I can't fit in the turn into the station and I'm too lazy to fix the rest of the ride. Volcano PKD: The biggest drop on the ride goes directly into the brakes? What a waste.

Now if you made a SFNE S:RoS, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Wild Chipmunk at Lakeside is the same model, and is great fun, especially with the funky helix. It's actually a bit tamer than I was hoping it to be (with thick soft inner car padding too), though that's no bad thing. For a really wild ride I only had to go over to Cyclone, for its sublime first half. I don't know. Wild Chipmunk is the only roller coaster I've ridden recently where I actually was convinced I would die. Nothing like a 50 year old coaster with no seatbelts.

No, the brakes are not polarized anything. They are just simple copper fins. On CS, the fins are on the train instead, and while the launch life motors are electromagnets, nothing says that you can't mount perminant magnets to the track to interact with those fins (after all, this is exactly how S:RoS works).

Storm Runer uses ony magnetic brakes (unless you count stopped drive tires as brakes), but that may be easier to do when the magnets are on the train and the fins are on the track (and where you never need to stop a train mid-course).

Very cool, although any ride that requires you to wear hearing protection worries me. BTW, most of the thumbnails on the last page are pointing to the wrong pictures. You might want to try to fix that.

Actually, that is not at all a stupid question. The implied meaning is "When does the 3 o'clock parade get here?" Depending on where you are standing, the 3 o'clock parade may start as late as 3:30.

Ahh, that RTD site is great, I wonder why my googling didn't find it. Looks like there is a bus that goes from within 1/4 mile of where I am staying in Boulder to within about 1/2 mile of the park.

I was wondering if someone who knows the Denver area could help me out here. I may find myself in Boulder, CO some time next month, and was thinking of trying to get to Elich Gardens on my own one day. I know that there are trains and busses that run between Boulder and Denver, but is there any easy way to get to the park once I am in Denver?

I did the manual stitching thing for my Disneyland image that I posted here a while back (150+ tiles), so I feel your pain. Not fun at all, and I was pretty pissed when I found out that there are programs that do it automatically.

Ehh, Google Earth is for wimps. Real geeks use USAPhotoMaps. Just hit the "U" key to switch to color photos, use the GoTo menu to go to an address or coordiantes, hit F to download the image data, use the + and - keys to zoom in and out, and use the arrow keys to navigate. Four times the resolution of Google, plus you can save pictures of any size area at the highest resolution (even Google Earth Pro doesn't let you do that).

I remember someone at Westcoaster mentioning that they hit their hands on the Log Jammer track while riding Gold Rusher (SFMM). Left their hand all black and blue too. Personally, I've only managed to hit my hand on one of the plants growing around Poison Ivy's Twisted Train at SFNE.

When I was at PKD, we were waiting for Hypersonic to open and watched them do a brake test. They actually managed to stop the train vertically on the hill. That was quite impressive. However, at least when I was there, there was a kick tire on the top of the hill. Was that added after it got stuck on the top?

What are thjey doing about handicapped access to Ninja and Superman? I would think the path on the Gold Rusher side is much too steep to be a legal wheelchair route. Are they running golf carts or something?

^August 2002

During the day, the large screens were used to rebroadcast Walt's dedication speach, the ceremony from that morning, and theCast Member window unveiling ceremony. At 4:45 was the official rebroadcast of the dedication, which was followed by the "Remember When" music video and the release of more doves from the castle. After that, I went home. People were grabbing handfulls of maps and ears on their way out (they didn't check handstamps when they gave out ears) so there should be plenty on eBay tomorrow. I have just put a small selection of my pictures here. There are much more at http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=4318173&a=31830570&vt=vp (and I have even more that I didn't upload there either). The poster next to the window. There are a lot of funny details in here, and CMs were stopping by all day to read it. The cast member window, located next ot the Main Street Cinema. The unveiling. Ditto on the blurring. The only time I saw resort president Matt Ouimet was when they replayed the Cast Member ceremony. As a technical note, my camera captured every single LED in the jumbotron which made the filesize balloon up. Therefore, I had to use photshop to blur th

By the time the ceremony ended, the crowds became more reasonable. I escaped via the train, and to my surprise, I got to ride the Ward Kimball. I can't explain it, but I just love the sound of the Kimball. It has a really deep, powerful sound that is unlike the other four engines. By this point, there were no lines at all to get in, and there were still plenty of giveaways. I rode Buzz and Star Tours, which were both 10 minute waits, and wandered around the park a bit. It was at this point that I saw the merchandise line which stretched from the Festival arena, though New Orleans Square, and all the way to the canoe dock. Most of the pictures below are from my wanderings. As you can see, Space Mountain fastpasses sold out at about 12:30pm. Ham radio operators were set up outside Innoventions "sending birthday greetings around the world". Mickey on the Matterhorn. Moutain Climbers were scaling the Matterhorn all day, including during the ceremony. In fact, almost every single entertainment group was out in full force. One of the local TV stations was doing a broadcast from here. Here's a peak of where they are going (taken later in the day). These people are insane. This is the line that went from the Canoe Dock to the Fesitval arena. It wasn't a fast moving line either. At least it kept people off the rides. This is the only photo you'll see of me in my ears. Engine #5, the Ward Kimball It's 11:00. Where did the lines go?

I got into the park and passed a bunch of camera crews doing interviews to head into Tomorrowland to pick up a Space Mountain fastpass. There was about a 15 minute wait just for the fastpasses. I snapped a shot of the Jumbotron there, walked around to It's a Small World to check out that Jumbotron, and then found a spot at the Train Station to watch the ceremony. On my way, I passed though the Little Mermaid area outside tomorrowland and quite literally bumped into Marty Sklar. I didn't quite realize who it was until I had started to walk away and notices his handlers. At the Main Stree station, I stood behind the reserved seating area, and just as I had expected, once the ceremony began the area was opened, and I got a nice front row bench seat. It was cloudy and dark down main street, but right before the ceremony began the clouds broke, and Main Street became a dazzling sea of golden mouse ears. I won't rehash the ceremony, since I'm sure videos will be up on countless sites by tomorrow, but it was very nice. As a nice touch, there was confetti shot from all the Jumbotron locations, including inside DCA. And then the obligatory daytime fireworks. Doves are released. The screen shows a clip of Art Linkletter while the camera people all film the crowd. Note the trumpeters on the Castle balcony. The crowd on Main Street. Just before the ceremony, they have everyone wave for a big photo op, and the photographers are on those two lifts about the jumbotron. It's a Small World Screen Tomorrowland Screen

Once through the bag check, the lines were quite short. I got into the park, had my hand stamped when they scanned my pass, and was directed to a table to pick up my hat and map. The hat was different from the normal hats, and the logo on the front appeared to be a sticker. I then went in search of a cupcake. It turns out that all the food service locations had lines dedicated to handing out cupcakes, and there was maybe a one person wait at most. (continued in next post) DETAIL SHOT!!! Cupcake. Note the fine stickerage. Hat Back. Hat front. All the tables lines up. There were similar tables in DCA and the Downtown Disney Monorail station. Here are the guys giving out goodies. Lines in the esplanade weren't that bad.

Just as a note: As you read through this TR, I will have introductory paragraphs, but a lot of the detail will be in the photo descriptions. This is just a subset of my pictures. The rest can be found at my Epson gallery, but without descriptions. Well, since I am not crazy, I decided that I would wait until 6am to get up and go to the resort. I left at 6:15, but unfortunately I realized at about 6:25 that I had left my pass at home. Anyway, long story short, I arrived at the resort at 7am, and was parked near the front of the 1st (Daisy) level of the parking structure. I was happy to see that the large Block Party Bash cone in the tram area had been turned off (the screen was replaced with a poster). When I got the Downtown Disney tram stop, we were hearded to the front of the tram, and told that the line began there. The line started at the front of the tram stop, went to the far end of the tram stop, doubled back, passed La Brea bakery, headed down DTD to the LEGO store, and finally headed back to the bag check. The line moved pretty steadily until 7:45 where it stopped (I was on the home stretch in front of the candy store). The line moving away from the park kept moving, so I can imagine that it easily extended all the way to the hotel. At 8:30 the line started up again. (continued in next post).[/url] And back through Downtown Disney. Out to the LEGO store. It then passes La Brea Bakery before heading down Downtown Disney. And doubles back towards the park. The line starts at the park end of the tram stop and heads to the far end.