cfc Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Arrows and SLCs are always so damn photogenic. Fair of face but foul of temper. I know what you mean about coming to appreciate the smaller parks, Natalie. I never used to give places like Knoebels a second thought until I joined TPR. The best of them have a vibe all their own that the corporate parks just can't quite match (I hold up Chester and Hester's Dinorama at Animal Kingdom as Exhibit A). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dammie16@vt.edu Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 I've always liked the smaller parks as well, like how Dollywood was my favorite trip this summer! Knoebels will always have a special place in my heart! Oh and great photos and captions btw! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesdillaman Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 ^ To be fair, Dollywood is on the verge of being a larger park, now... Not only in amount of guests, but in terms of rides being added and general park improvements. I think once they connected the back of the park into a giant circle, they've moved up to medium-park status. Great pictures, Natalie! Looks like you had some nice weather for the trip, nothing like Cedar Point on the midwest trip, was it? -James Dillaman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dammie16@vt.edu Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 I still rank it as smaller park because it isn't a big corporation park and still has a small park feel to it, but I do agree that it will soon be too big to be a "small" park. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grinch1313 Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 The picture of the Screamin' Eagle reminded me why I chose "Ice Cream: The Ride" instead. SCARY! I was quite happy to partake in "Ice Cream: The Ride" as well. That ride looked terrifying. And after seeing everyone's faces on it, I knew it was. Great TR, Natalie! I love the photos and the captions!! And the photos of the girls on the log flume...priceless! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PKI Jizzman Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 natatomic...awesome pics! Loving the trip report! Orrrr....Hanno might have seen the trailer for Hamlet 2 while riding! -J "Rock me, rock me sexy Jesus!" Z Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhantomNick Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 Awesome trip report and photos, Natalie! Your captions were cracking me up!! And that batch of photos of Ride of Steel from the pavilion area were stunningly great - I'm assuming you have a pretty kick-a$$ camera! The more and more I read these TPR Trip Reports, the more certain I am that I need to attend one. And I'm with ya on gaining an appreciation for the smaller parks. One trip to Knoebels did it for me! Darien Lake is a nice mid-sized park, and I love RoS. However, it is also home to the worst roller coaster I've ever ridden......yep, it's the "boob bouncer" itself, Predator. What a pile of crap that thing is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgb60 Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 nat, enjoyable TR and hilarious captions! Quite flumaceous. Just watch when you let the photos speak for themselves-- they talk about you behind your back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dammie16@vt.edu Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 When I thought about that first caption again I remembered you telling a story in the stupid GP topic about people coming to Disney asking where Universal was so yes I think people really WOULDN'T know where they were or the people at the gates would get a ton of "Is this [insert park name]???" The sign just saves trouble for the workers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
U2Rox Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 That reminds me of another Natalie story, in which the GP would come up and ask "Does this ride go upside down" "Do I get wet on this ride?" Ha!! You just have to hear it the way Robbie says it,!!! Good Times!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Johnson Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 The run back to the bus after riding Superman really proved to me how out of shape I am. The funny thing is that I somehow accidently bumped my video camera into its "on" position while it was in my pocket so now I have a POV (Pocket of View) segment of me running to the bus. I think we had 90 seconds to spare while Kim had around 30-40 seconds. It really was too close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All Clear Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 It was horrifying. I've never been so panicked in my life as when Roxanne said, "I just called Robb and he hung up on me." It was like Darien Lake was about to sink into an abyss and I had to get out of there or be sentenced to eternity on the Mind Eraser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
U2Rox Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 That's for sure!! I didn't realize how close we actually cut it till Robb said 90 secs! Agh!! I was already thinking "catch a bus, taxi, how are we going to get to the next park!! It was a panic moment for a little bit there!!! Mind Eraser Abyss!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coasterfreak101 Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Oh, wow. The first three pictures (and, of course, their subsequent captions) of the Darien Lake TR had me laughing for quite the long period of time. And the two pictures of the girls on the log flume...that was me last summer. Not gonna lie. I would've laughed too, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natatomic Posted August 20, 2008 Author Share Posted August 20, 2008 Day 2b: Martin's Fantasy Island Before I do the TR for this park, let me tell you a little [95% off-topic] side story that all of you are welcome to completely ignore and skip over. As I was driving up to Pennsylvania the Friday before the trip, I was eating a chicken wrap, when suddenly the left side of my jaw started aching horribly and I couldn't open my mouth much wider than an inch. FUN TIMES, let me tell ya. But, dang, I had spent all that money, just survived four hours of 10mph traffic, and shaved my legs special that morning - ALL FOR THIS TRIP - so I was NOT going to let a little jaw pain and the inability to use my mouth to ingest large foodstuffs get in my way. MY JAW IS NOT THE BOSS OF ME. But when the pain didn't go away, I made myself a dentist appointment half way through the trip for when I got back home, and the scary, scary dentist-man used words like "inflamed," "tmj," "unrepairable damage," "hopefully no surgery 'til you're sixty," and "we'll cross our fingers, mmk?" So, for those of you who were on the trip, if it seemed like I was unable to fit a cheeseburger in my mouth, if you noticed that I couldn't eat a spoonful of cereal without my lips pushing most of it off the side of the spoon, and if it seemed like I was gumming my food more so than actually chewing it, well, you saw correctly, but it's not because I'm some moron that doesn't know how to eat food, or something. It's because my jaw, it pains me. And that's basically my story. There wasn't really a point, other than to show you what a trooper I am, surviving all the jaw pain during the eating and roller coastering and whatnot. But you know what? I pushed through that pain, I suffered for my hobby, and I rode those coasters with a fiery passion; and given the fact that my jaw is still hurting this very second, I think that gives me the right to call myself the Kerri Strug of theme parks, thank you very much. [/story] SO! TRIP REPORT! Martin's Fantasy Island is a cute family park, worth visiting if only to ride Silver Comet. And maybe to canoe in a sickeningly viridian lake. Or pond. However you would classify it. But really, Silver Comet is a fantastic woody, and I know it ended up on many top 10 lists that night. I didn't explore the park enough to really give it an accurate report beyond "Silver Comet! It's good!" though, because apparently there was a whole section with giant statues that I completely missed. And I don't mean the statues were abnormally large, I mean that there were actually statues of giants. Though, I guess they were abnormally large, too, hence the term "giant." BUT! What I'm trying to say is that if one attends a park but comes away completely ignorant of the giant giant statues, obviously one did not do said park justice. Having said that, on to the photos: A view from the Ferris Wheel of Niagara Falls, and lo! Marineland! See it?! Let that serve as the foreshadowing of things to come. But up next, at some point this week, Canada's Wonderland. Stay tuned. Nighttime! Erik giving the lion head. Haha...get it? *giggle* Head... Well...almost every square inch. I could say something else relating back to the photo of him and Neil in the log, but goodness, even I have my limits. Even Jahan was soaked on every square inch of his body. This flume made everyone giggle. But see? Neil enjoys taking it like a man! Tyler: "Uh, Jahan? Neil? What's going on up there, buddies?" I'm glad I wasn't one of the five, though. From what I understand, they don't normally cram in five full-grown adults, but for us, they made an exception. Simple layout, yes, but it's the modest flumes you have to watch out for. Sorry, I don't know how to make a Ferris Wheel funny. Ferris Wheel! Brooke likes to move when the music so compels her, but I think the guy on the right *dearly* wishes that she didn't. Forget the TPR Bag o' Crap, Martin has a whole WALL o' Crap. The option of the game was to take a picture of yourself throwing the ball in the box. Or something like that. I dunno, I wasn't really paying attention. Probably why I didn't win. "I GOT IT!" My hair looks like Medusa's snake-do, but forget that, Jake clearly found this spinning mouse to be orgasmic. Judging by the mouse's expression, however, the feeling wasn't exactly mutual. Full Tilt - hah, yeah right. Ok, so they warned me of all the tilting before I boarded, so while on the ride, I kept waiting and waiting for the omg!tilting to begin. Then the ride was over, and I was all like, "Wait, where was all the tilting?" But everyone ELSE apparently felt it - they were all talking about it and saying how CRAZY all! that! tilting! was! Well, dadgum, how'd I miss it then? Two theories: 1. I think Martin got everyone together to play a joke on me ("haha, let's call this thing "Full Tilt," and in a few years when Natalie visits, let's get everyone to convince her that it really DOES tilt, and she'll be so confused when it doesn't, and man, what a worth-while joke, right?") or 2. my messed-up TMJ-ified jaw has severely numbed my inner ear. Or something like that. I don't really know how biology works. The GP seems pretty relaxed and un-freaked out, though. Go figure. I thought I'd find this calming and relaxing. Instead I found out I'm afraid of heights. Like, white-knuckled-holding-on-for-dear-life-sorry-can't-talk-too-busy-closing-my-eyes afraid. This thing didn't even spin. Tell me, Martin, WHAT IS THE POINT? I see three claps and a thumbs up. I think it's a winner. This is just about the only photo I have of Silver Comet. Man, I failed this park something terrible. : Who you trying to fool, Martin? No body of water is naturally THAT shade of green. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olsor Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Great stuff, Natalie! Keep it coming. Because somebody had to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grinch1313 Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 The run back to the bus after riding Superman really proved to me how out of shape I am. The funny thing is that I somehow accidently bumped my video camera into its "on" position while it was in my pocket so now I have a POV (Pocket of View) segment of me running to the bus. I think we had 90 seconds to spare while Kim had around 30-40 seconds. It really was too close. I thought I was going to die doing that run. But I certainly was not going to miss that bus. I'm just going to have to do some running before next year to get in better shape. Although I will never cut anything that close ever again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Starr Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Haha great report as usual. Head... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
printersdevil78 Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 ...if you noticed that I couldn't eat a spoonful of cereal without my lips pushing most of it off the side of the spoon... In capturing the "Breakfast Time!" square for Elissa Photo Bingo, I (unknowingly at the time) took a picture of this very occurrence--seriously, the Cheerios (or whatever they were) are in mid-flight! For those who are interested, I'll be selling prints of this rare, never-before-seen image on my new website, Flying Froot Loops dot com. For an extra $5, I'll even get the hotel worker who had to sweep up the aborted Cheerios (or whatever they were) to sign your individually numbered copy. All proceeds benefit my Future TPR Trip fund, so order today! Operators are standing by! Great pictures as always, Natalie. I remain impressed by your ability to make the clouds do your camera's bidding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natatomic Posted August 20, 2008 Author Share Posted August 20, 2008 I didn't think I'd given proper thank yous yet, and I was just on my way here to send out a thanks to all those who have commented on my TR, when I first read Jason's reply (above this one) in which he makes fun of me and my poor, broken, barely-functioning jaw. Boo hoo hoo, Jason, you made a little girl sad. Still - a million genuine thank yous to everyone for your comments so far, UNLESS YOUR NAME IS JASON AND YOU PLAN ON PROFITING OFF MY PAIN. You shall not be receiving single thank from me, haHA! Unless, Jason, you want to cut me in on some of those profits you spoke of so that I can have a Future TPR Trip Fund as well. Maybe, then, we can negotiate a thank or two. Maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arrowfanman Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Brilliant PTR! Great photos, great captions, and a whole lot of Neil and me getting wet! :: Look forward to more, Natalie! -Jahan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
downunder Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Nice grab shot on the log flume, that is such an epic face plant, a violent work of art. I've almost done that myself on Goliath at SFMM when they have the mid-course brakes on hard. The Burqa girls seemed out of place at Martin's but it was nice they got to get out of the house or wherever they keep them. I wished they were Ninja's, I've always wanted to fight Ninja's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Johnson Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Oh dear, now everyone can see how long my tongue is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natatomic Posted August 20, 2008 Author Share Posted August 20, 2008 ^That's okay, the lion certainly appreciated it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 I love it! I'm finally getting around to reading everyone's TR's and it's so awesome to see everyone's different perspective on the trip. Looking forward to more... --Robb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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