TR: Jon joins Robb and Elissa in Florida

[DegoRed]

So Robb posted his version of the trip, so here's mine.

 

Day 1 - BGT and IoA

 

Started off wednesday night taking the redeye from LAX to Orlando, which was interesting since I had never taken a redeye before. Robb and Elissa slept for most of the flight, but I couldn't so that ended up catching up with me later in the day

 

We get in to Orlando around 6:30 pick up the rental car and we're off to BGT. Meet up with our PR rep and head over to Shiekra. I was a bit dissapointed that we had to wait till the park opened to ride but we still got 2 front row rides in

 

Review: Definitely exceeded my expectations, and is really a lot of fun to ride. Very high re-ride factor. The hold before the first drop is really cool, especially in the front, you get some good hangtime on the immelman, and the splash effect is really cool, best one I've seen on any coaster. The second drop is actually my favorite part of the ride because you are actually moving going over it which gives you some air, probably more in the back but didn't get a chance to ride the back row. It's definitely not an intense coaster, more graceful, like Silver Bullet, but overall I give it a 8/10 defintiely up there on my top coasters.

 

After Shiekra we checked out the other coasters. Started off with Gwazi....I'm not sure what to say about this one. The ride is intense and fast, but man does it throw you around a lot. Still a lot of fun. We rode Lion cause Tiger wasn't open. And I saw some of the worst dispatch times ever on a coaster - waited 20 min

 

Not really sure of the order after that but I think we did Montu next. I heard BGT kinda tamed the last part of the ride, but you coulda fooled me. First ride was in the front. Awesome, Absolutely loved the the theming and ground interaction on this one. Definitely one of my top B&M Inverts - waited 5 min

 

Kumba - Another amazing B&M, I really had no idea what an intense B&M was until i visited this park. The great thing about Kumba is the theming and landscaping, you can't really see all of the ride from anywhere. Really intense ride -waited 5 min

 

Scorpion - Another Swarzkopf (sp?) to add to my list. This one was really fun, and packed a good punch for a coaster its size - waited 5 min

 

So after Scorpion we headed back over to Shiekra and I went and sat down while Robb got the footage he needed. It took longer than expected because Sheikra went down. At this point, I was so exhausted from the redeye I just crashed right there at the table. Robb has some shots of that I'm sure will end up in update.

 

After that we rode cheetah chase and I took another ride on Montu and we headed back to Orlando to check in at Royal Pacific.

 

Royal Pacific is easily the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. The hotel is a short walk from the 2 universal parks and the free Universal Express pass is a huge bonus. After we checked in and got settled we headed over to IoA

 

Hulk - Another intense knock your socks off B&M. Awesome layout and the launch was cool. - waited about 15 min

 

Spiderman - Loved everything about this ride except for the spinning part that almost made me sick. Really awesome effects though - waited 10 min

 

Dudley Do-Rights Rip Saw Falls - My #1 favorite log flume, just a lot of fun, and the best drop of any flume I've ever been on - waited 15 min

 

We got pretty wet so we decided to hit Bluto's raft ride. I really liked this one, probably one of the top raft rides I've been on. The curved drop at the end was really cool. Robb and I both got completely drenched on it, it was fun. Elissa decided to sit out the two water rides - no wait walked on with express pass

 

we did Flying Unicorn which was a lot more fun than I expected, then it was off to my most anticipated ride, Dragons

 

Dragons is easily my favorite B&M invert for a couple reasons. Even though the layouts are pretty short they pack a punch. The dueling element just adds so much more to the ride as well as the theming and interaction. Overall after 3 rides I liked Fire better.

 

I think that ended our first day at IoA, but we conquered the park in under 2 hours, and we would be coming back on Saturday

 

I was really amazed how light the crowds were at BGT and IoA. That night we had dinner at Carabba's, and I really wish we had those here on the west coast, cause it is some of the best italian food I've had, unfortunately I was so tired I could barely eat. Went back to the hotel and called it a night.

 

One thing I forgot to mention. I did bring my camcorder and camera with me but while we were at BGT I made the decidion not to film due to the overall fast pace of the trip, so I won't have any videos or photos but Robb and Elissa took plenty

 

Next day: Epcot and MGM.....

[robbalvey]

I hadn't gotten around to responding to this yet since we've been so busy with lots of other random stuff, but I wanted to say thanks to Jon for putting up with us on that trip!

 

It was certainly a crazy, whirlwind trip where we did so much in such a short amount of time. I'm sure other people can relate, right?

 

Thanks for the great TR....I hope you can get around to posting the Epcot and other days soon!

 

--Robb "Wants to hear your Beverly report!" Alvey