Yeah 7 Posted August 1, 2005 Posted August 1, 2005 Excellent Don Have you seen my photos from the trip yet? Love to see the DVD...... One bit you missed off your reports was the check in at Holiday Inn, that was funny!
dandaman Posted August 1, 2005 Posted August 1, 2005 Dude, I LOVE the Smart Cars!!!! In fact, it looks like they ARE trying to bring them to the US: http://www.smartcar-usa.com/ --Robb They already have a dealership in Canada, about 15 minutes away from here... They have the same glass tower vending machine-like display that Jeezus Juice mentioned.
CoasterEricHP Posted August 1, 2005 Posted August 1, 2005 LOL.. i love the hell shirt!! Definately the look I get when pumping gas. Anyways, AWESOME TR. Easily one of the best ever. I'm glad to see you guys had a great time. Does the Eiffel Tower still have the strobes that go nuts at night? Eric
PhishyBrewer Posted August 1, 2005 Posted August 1, 2005 Very cool! Hopefully we all can sit around the hooka pipe and hear more great stories soon. Thanks for sharing!
USCoaster Posted August 1, 2005 Posted August 1, 2005 Awesome pics and report!!! I think my next big trip is to Austria to ride Alpine Coasters. Forget the rest of Europe. I wanna go zipping through the trees on little pipes!!! On to Smart... Smart has a release plan for the States, however, the 4two and the 4four are not in the first wave. Instead, they will release a Smart lite SUV because "that is what Americans want." As far as importing Smart cars, there is a company in Santa Rosa that imports them and does the modifications required to meet US regulations. The only problem is Mercedes (maker of Smart with help from Swatch) has said that they will not provide any services for owners of imported Smart cars. The other question is whether or not Smart will be around long enough to make it to the United States. The Smart division has reportedly never turned a profit and actually looses money on each car they sell. As much as I would love one, I don't see it happening anytime soon. I desperately want to see one of the Roadsters! I think that is one of the silliest looking cool cars ever.
coasterdude5 Posted August 1, 2005 Posted August 1, 2005 Great Pics and reports! It's be so awesome to do a European trip like that someday.
Hicko Posted August 1, 2005 Posted August 1, 2005 Great trip report. Excellent to read after a long day at work 8) Smart cars are cool, My wife has a fortwo cabriolet which I get from DaimlerChrysler (The company I work for).
Ghost Posted August 1, 2005 Posted August 1, 2005 Awesome report... I really need to catch up on some of those parks out there.
Jeezus Juice Posted August 2, 2005 Author Posted August 2, 2005 Oh man, I was trying to forget about the holiday inn check in. Basically Justin went ape**** on the clerk when he demanded that we all give him all 70 of our passports for a few hours so they can copy the information from everybody. Problem was that when making the reservations he was told it wouldn't be nessisary otherwise we would have brought extra copies to hand them. I caught the tain end of the altercation on video and snapped a few pics. Oh, and I just watched the POV's of the Alpine coasters. You guys might wanna send in your DVD preorders now so I know how many to make. Luckily the native american with the whips wasn't nessisary, but we had him on alert just in case. Yngve and Phil enjoy the specticle safely from the sidelines. We decided to make a tense situation even worse by being as much a nusience as possible. Hey, were on vacation right? Here is the clerk taking the full frontal assult from the European Coaster Club
Sir Clinksalot Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Bravo Don!!! What a totally awesome TR!!! You started off very high in my book with the Rush reference, very cool. I thought that might be the highlight for me, but I was wrong. Some very cool pics and reports. It looks like you guys had a totally awesome time. Thanks for sharing your trip with us.
Damien666 Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Nice trip report! Question! At Gardaland,did you go on Magic House? I want to know how it is. It's a Vekoma Madhouse like Hex. It was in the giant cartoon tree (Well it's not in the tree,but there's a elevator that takes you down to the madhouse.),did you go on it?
USCoaster Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 So in regards to the Smart conversation above, the local paper in Reno had an article about the guy in Santa Rosa who imports Smart cars. It turns out he wants to build a Smart dealership complete with car tower in Carson City, 30 miles south of Reno. He's just waiting for the cars to arrive. Here is a link to the article.
Jeezus Juice Posted August 2, 2005 Author Posted August 2, 2005 Wow, I live in Santa Rosa. I should check out the Smart car guy (they were too heavy for carry-on.) Yes, we did the Magic House! I noticed right away that it was the same ride manufacturer that made Hex. It's still the most convincing haunted swing type ride I'v ever seen. A great step up from the Duch wonder house at Dutch Wonderland thats for sure. I've never been able to ride the "Houdini's Great Escape's" at the six flags parks because they've never been open. Does anybody know if there are anyother haunted swing rides like Hex or Hagic House? Oh, and Robb, were already thinking of doing a quick Tokyo Disneyland trip (3-4 days) in November! After seeing how cool Paris was we HAVE to check out TDL and TDS. Anyway, Magic House was really cool. Actually their whole childrens area was award winning. I don't know how Kings Island won best kids area. Gardaland was like a kiddie Disneyland unto itself. Ghoster Coaster isn't even ever open! Don "Who has PKI been sleeping with anyway?" Garrison
Yeah 7 Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Don, They are called Mad Houses' and are made by Vekoma. Check out this website for details of all the installations in Europe at least. Most are made by Vekoma, there is one Mack version (at Europa park). What makes Gardalands even more impressive is that it's underground. Considering if the ride was above ground, they have to dig a fair way into the ground to fit the drum and housing. I have a video of the workings of Hex on my website, they are very impressive and techincal. I believe the reason why the ones in America closed is that a fault was discovered in that if the fire alarm went off, the ride would stop, but would not correct the drum. Meaning that the doors would not line up, effectively trapping people inside. Quite a bad flaw in the system.
CoasterFanatic Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 ^ Especially seeing as one of them is at SFGAdv and they have some very bad memories related to that sort of thing.
Damien666 Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Hmm...reading an article on Vekoma's Madhouse's in madhouse guide. If there is a problem,a computer will put the drum back in it's normal place. If that fails,they can turn the drum by hand!
CoasterFanatic Posted August 3, 2005 Posted August 3, 2005 I think Idlewild park has a small "Haunted Swing" but I am not sure of the make.
smells_like_team_disney Posted August 4, 2005 Posted August 4, 2005 Wow, awesome TR!! I gotta get me to Europe one of these days!
robbalvey Posted August 10, 2005 Posted August 10, 2005 Congrats Don! Your thread got a mention on Screamscape!!! --Robb
Ed Posted August 10, 2005 Posted August 10, 2005 This is the "Esplande des Invalides". I can't remember what it is used for but I know that Napolean is buried there. I was in Paris just over a week ago. Beautiful city.
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