Thrill Times east coaster tour Photo TR

[Reon]

I have some extra time this morning, so heres CP day 2: THE PICS!

 

 

Our room

 

Just when you think I was out of Maverick pictures....

 

Whee

 

Donkey shoe roll

 

Donkey shoe roll

 

After I got my triple rollback on Maverick, my train walked down the Frontier Trail to MF

 

TO THE EXIT RAMP!!!!!!

 

This guy told us how awesome we were, then opened up the back door to the station

 

Up the lift we go

 

MilF

 

Upskirt MilF?

 

The line we DIDN'T have to wait in

 

Next on the menu was Wildcat

 

Wildcat, the underaprecciated coaster at Cedar Point

 

Jeff and I, waiting for the Cat

 

Group shot: Jeff, Doug, yours truly

 

Wicked Twister wasn't open yet, so I tried to improvise...

 

Alot of the big coasters werent open, so we went on this

 

Power Tower, through the trees

 

Only one shot tower was running...

 

After Tower, Jeff had to leave....Then his pride and joy, Mantis finally opened. Sucker

[Reon]

MOAR!!!!111!

 

We were in the area, so we did this

 

The tremendously long wait

 

This is apparently Doug's favorite

 

The ending would have been more fun if it was taken at a fast speed.

 

Either way, its very photogenic

 

See?

 

Going

 

Going...

 

Gone!

 

After wandering around for a while, we did this

 

Atleast it looks cool, right?

 

 

 

Blue Streak wasn't running that many seats, which made the wait longer than needed...

 

Still, who can argue with it's classic air filled goodness?

 

We hit this again on the way out

 

Back seat is the best, no questions asked

 

Some construction of the new extreme sports show.

 

My next post will be the end of our CP update for now. Namely our adventures out of the park. I'll post the rest of the CP shots at the end of the report...

[Reon]

Before leaving Sandusky, we stopped at Battery Park to take some overview shots. Enjoy them

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working on my ghetto/awesome pose

 

Take 2

 

We stopped here for food.

 

This is where I stayed last time I came.

 

Ouch?

 

Several hours later, we arrived in Morgantown WV, home to my college's bitter rivals. Doug wanted to see his old friends/hangout, so we did.

 

My dinner

 

Cool mural in the bar

 

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, heres the moment you've all been waiting for: Doug taking a tiny sip of beer.

 

My two drinks

 

Left to right: Justin, John, and Doug

 

Karaoke

 

Self-explanitory

 

John and one of the Sportsbar's...workers

 

Justin

 

 

Thats all for our CP adventrues. I'll post the other overview, and non-hit ride stuff later. Expect a huge update with Kennywood and SFGAdv tonight...I'm off to ride Dark Knight, and a bunch of other new credits!

[Reon]

Thanks for the lack of replies Before my promised huge photo update, I have to express myself on today's adventures...

 

May 15: Six Flags Great Adventure, OR There's air in them thar' hills

 

We started the day by heading over to Dark Knight. They were in the middle of the press event, and we would have watched it if we weren't whoring. So we went to the OTHER Batman ride in the park: Batman: The Ride. This was both of our first B:TR so we didn't know what to expect. Trains loaded pretty slowly, but the ride was pretty cool. Those corks had some nice forces in them, and it was moderately themed which is a plus. As we went down the ramp, we noticed that the conference was still going on, so we went a bit deeper into the park.

 

Our next coaster on the list was Nitro. This is where my subtitle comes from, or atleast part of it. We managed to get a back seat ride, and lets just say I floated 50% of the ride. Nitro is filled to the brim with sweet, sweet floater air on every hill, and has a few other twists to the ride. Even with the annoying exit ramp, Nitro was a great rollercoaster, unlike our next credit. As we got off Nitro, the ride op announced Dark Knight was open. Since we were in the area, we thought we could get it out of the way.

 

 

2 hour wait. Even though I can understand it for the grand opening, the ride really wasn't that great, especially compared to Exterminator from yesterday. Theres a nice pre-show, and good theming outside of the ride, but once you board the trains, its basically just a glorified wild mouse. There are a few hits of scenery, but aside from that, no. Until SF proves otherwise, this is a get the credit and run ride. To regain some lost time, we ran over to Skull Mountain, the GOOD indoor coaster at the park. Even though the theming inside the mountain is CF quality at best, the ride is a pretty fun spaghetti bowl type ride. If you ride in the back, you even get a nice suprise...

 

Continuing to whore credits, we hit the Looney Tunes kiddy. Then we went over to long train the ride, aka Blackbeard's Treasure Train. Long Train was kind of fun, but the best part was getting airtime by being whipped over the lift hill if you ride in the back. Done with that side of the park, we went to the boardwalk for lunch (note to future: bad idea) To make things worse, the next coaster we could find was GASM. Great American Scream Machine is an Arrow that I'm not so proud of, and this is coming from a fan of KI's Vortex. Headache's renewed, we opted to skip out on Superman: Ultimate Failage's 90 minute wait, and headed towards the other coasters.

 

To calm our arrow pains down, we hit the park's oldest coaster: Runaway Minetrain. It's pretty fun for a mine coaster, and the last hill actually has a bit of airtime, which was pretty cool. After our little cool down, I dragged Doug to one of the reasons I wanted to visit SFGAdv, Medusa. I've wanted to ride it ever since I got that old America's Greatest coaster video, and now I finally got my chance. I have to admit that floorlessness is a bit gimmicky, but its a cool gimmick, and the ride's fun. Not to mention Zero-G rolls are now my favorite element after today.

 

With all but one steel out of the way, we head for woody central. El Toro had a long line, so we warmed up on Rolling Thunder (which was only running one side). RT was actually pretty fun, and had some nice floater all around the course. Its a pitty the other side wasn't up, because it looked like a fun racer. With it's older brother out of the way, we finally rode the bull. ET had a 90 minute wait, but atleast im MY oppinion, it was worth it. For the longest time time now, Cyclops at Mt. Olympus has been my undisputed favorite wooden coaster. Well, lets just say that it has retired its position as of today. El Toro is an astounding ride from start to finish. Although the second third isn't that interesting, the first strip of hills has INSANE airtime, and the twister section is pretty fun (not to mention the hill into it has amazing floater air down the whole way.) Although I'm still tempted to say Maverick is my favorite coaster, El Toro has given it some good competition to say the least.

 

Once we were done with ET, we had about an hour left before park closing. The line for Kingda Ka was 2 hours long, so we decided that having ridden TTD was close enough and took the skyride back for a reride on Skull Mountain, Nitro, and finally B:TR. Just then it was time to leave, so we bought some merch (an El Toro shirt for me), and left. 2 hours later, and we arrived at our hotel, conveniently right across the street from tomorrow's park: Dorney Park.

[YoshiFan]

Sounds like waits were horrible for a weekday in May. 90 minutes - 2 hour waits are very bad considering it's so early in the season. I know it was the opening of TDK and Student Council Day with 4,000 students and some other event but I would have never guessed lines were that bad.

 

Kingda Ka is not worth 2 hours, neither is Superman at 90 minutes (but I don't think either is worth more than 15 minutes)

 

Glad to see you enjoyed Nitro, I think it's the best coaster at the park. Hopefully you'll have better luck with lines tomorrow at Dorney.

[Reon]

I'll say that Nitro and ET were my faves in the park. I've wanted to hit Nitro for a while, since the only BM hyper I've been on was Raging Bull, and thats more of a twister. I totally agree about Superman too. I went on the one at SFGAm, and was sorely disapointed to find that I had just wasted 2 hours that could have been used grabbing a V2 and Iron Wolf credit. I haven't done Tatsu yet, but IMO the Flying Dutchmen are better than B&M flyers.

 

Looks like it'll be rainy today, so we should have no problem with Dorney.

[Hercules]

You won't have a problem with the park as long as they are running the rides....

[Reon]

I can't agree with you more, Herc. Which is why I have to say one thing:

 

May 16: Dorney Park, or a Rainy Day for Cedar Fair

 

The day started out with some absolutely beautiful weather of 50* and rain storms. Of course, CF had all the coasters closed for a while, though even the towers seemed to be operating. While it was still storming, we hit Music Express and the only credit that was actually open in the rain: Woodstock Express. After that, we managed to take cover and grab a bite to eat at the Sports Grill. One Double Cheezeburger combo later, I quickly got my hand stamped so I could run to the car and grab a sweatshirt to save myself from getting sick. Covering up my new Phantom's Revenge shirt, I ran back to the park, where I could see Talon testing.

 

Nearly estatic to see the coasters working again, Doug and I went to get in line. This is where the "fun" began. The line was about half an hour+, and they were only running one train, which made the operations go much slower. Not to mention there were a bunch of school groups in the park. Once we made our way to the front of the line, we grabbed some back row seats and were off. Great ride, with some nice forces, a few pops of air, and general B&M inverted goodness.

 

Next up was their floorless coaster, Hydra. As we waited in line, I got to watch as they put the second train on the ride, which scared away lots of customers (I guess they thought the ride was closed or something.) As we made it into the station, it started to rain again, closing the coasters for atleast a half hour. Luckily that scared away the rest of the crowd, and we were able to get a front seat ride for the second train after the rain cleared. Doug didn't know about the Jojo roll, so I kept it a suprise until we eventually boarded our train. As for the ride itself, not too bad. Nothing groundbreaking, but its an overall fun ride with lots of forces, twists, turns, and suprises. Theres even a bit of airtime, which I was pretty happy with (this trip is turning me into an airtime/zero g roll fanatic).

 

To continue our credit quest, we went down to Thunderhawk. Down technical, so we decided to come back later. Steel Force was pretty close, but after seeing the line go out to the entrance, we opted to save it for later aswell. The only other major coaster was Laser, and apparently it's getting torn down. So, we had to wait for Steel Force while Thunderhawk was getting fixed. Thanks to a mixture of school groups, rain, and one train operation, Steel Force's line was 2 hours long. It was pretty discouraging, but the ride almost made it worth it. Though Steel Force has a pretty basic looking layout, its filled with great floater air. The turn around is a great swooping helix that interacts with the park's go carts, log flume, and even Hydra. Overall a great hyper, it ties with Nitro for my favorite normal hyper right now.

 

After Steel Force, the rain cleared away in more than a literal sense. The school groups were gone, Thunder Hawk was open again, and nearly everything was a walk on. Doug and I were able to cycle trhough all the open coasters once more (in front seat/back seat no less), and hit the cool flats like Dominator, Apallo, and Whip. Once we had enough, we went back to the car and left. Overall, I was a little dissapointed with some of the rides not being open, like Wild Mouse, but other than that Dorney was a pretty cool park.

[YoshiFan]

2 hours for Steel Force

 

I would have never expected that, was the line into the 2nd set of switchbacks? I just can't believe it but I guess with 1 train it kills the capacity.

 

Laser is supposed to open by the end of the month. Everyone thought it would be gone this year, it was even left out of the rider guide in 2 spots which seems more than a mistake but the ride will be open at least for this season.

 

I am also not happy to hear about the rain shutting down the coasters. Yeah there was some heavy rain today but it didn't last for that long and didn't seem that bad most of the day (not great perfect walking around weather but it didn't seem to strong).

 

At least you had the chance to get walk ons later in the day.

[Reon]

The way the ops were talking about it, Laser is headed for the scrap heap. Apparently its falling apart piece by piece, and the trains are starting to not make it through test runs.

[robbalvey]

Did you mean to spell it "Thill Times" on the topic title or was that a typo? I honestly didn't know and I was wondering!

 

Thanks for posting all these great TR's BTW.

 

--Robb

[YoshiFan]

The way the ops were talking about it, Laser is headed for the scrap heap. Apparently its falling apart piece by piece, and the trains are starting to not make it through test runs.

 

That's not good to hear, I still hope they manage to get it open this year but from what you said it doesn't sound like it. The park is now advertising 10 coasters so I had thought Laser would be open but not if it is having problems.

[Reon]

Thanks for pointing that out, Robb. I hardly even noticed.

[Reon]

May 17: Knoebles

 

Today was the last day of the trip, and I could not think of any better way to finish it off. Even before hitting any rides, I was pretty psyched about free parking and the $20 all day hand stamp. As soon as we got them, we went to one of their only non-included attractions, the world famous haunted mansion. Personally I don't see what was so special about it, but it was still worth the $1.40 ticket. It's more edge of your seat scary than holy crap I wanna die scary, but there are a cool parts that will get you.

 

On our quest for credits, we made our way towards the imfamous High Speed Thrill Coaster. On our way there, we went on the big spiral slide. It was pretty fun, and I did a 360 on the exit slide, so that was cool. Moving on the HSTC itself, awesome. HSTC may just look like a standard oval kiddie, but with the lift jacked up to 15mph (my estimate, someone correct me if I'm wrong), you get massive airtime on the 2 bunny hills. With one credit out of the way, I could already see that the $20 was well worth it.

 

Moving on to bigger credits, we hit Twister. They were only running one train at the time, but the operators ran it really fast and smoothly. We were on the backseat in no time. I think that Twister is a nice forceful woody, with a few small pops of air. Not the best ride in the world, but still pretty fun. After we got off, we quested to find Phoenix, which lay just across the way at the other end of the park.

 

Phoenix is....wow. All I'm gonna say is if you like airtime, RIDE THIS COASTER NOW! Phoenix features and awesome double up, double down hill in the middle of it's course, and once you hit it your hardly in your seat until the end of the ride. Of course, there is great airtime outside of that.

 

After Phoenix, we went on the Antiques to get some shots. Then rode Phoenix again. After that, we hit some cool flat rides. One thing that I loved was the Cosmotron. It proves that a few extras can turn a simple flat into an experience. Cosmotron uses strobe lights, fog machines, music, and disco balls to turn a simple himalaya into Rave Party: the ride. I'd defiantly check it out when you go to this park. After a few flats, we ate some lunch, and found that admission isn't the ONLY cheap thing at Knoebles.

 

Next up, we found the Fascination building and played $10 worth of games. I can see why you guys always talk about it now. Nice game, and very addicting. We didn't win anything, but I got pretty close a couple of times. With the slight rain gone, and finishing up Fascination, we went back over to Phoenix. Because Knoebles had no camera policies, I was going to film some on ride videos to upload. So I got in the front seat, held my camera tight (yay lack of professionalizement), and I was off. Now, dear readers, if I can teach you one thing today, it's this: don't make on rides of Phoenix unless you can pull a Robb and tape it to the car! And now, completely off topic, my Phoenix review for the front seat.

 

Go out of station and into tunnel of darkness and doom. Turn around in said tunnel to approach lift hill. Go up said lift hill and high five anyone in line that you can. Fun begins. Float down first drop. Get ejected going into turn around. Float down turn around. Leave seat for entire bunny hill. Turn around without air for some reason. Float down turn around. Eject up double up. Float over top of double up-double down. Float down double down. Another turn around. Long string of bunny hills in which you never touch your seat due to immense air time. End of ride.

 

After that amazing ride, we tried our luck on filming some other rides. Mission successful on Twister. I'll upload that to my youtube account asap for you all. I tried to film on Cosmotron, but apparently our camera doesn't pick up light effects too well. After some filming, we hit some more flats, took 2 more laps on Phoenix, and ate some more in park food. Long story short, Knoebles is awesome. I now hate all huge corporate parks just because this place does everything they can, except better and for a much more affordable price.

 

 

Photos will be up tonight once I have time to upload them all, and the same goes for my video of Twister.