Josh's West Coast 2009 PTR.

[Jds03]

Day Zero & One - Plane Ride, skymall, La Quinta Lax, Vince beach, Pacific park and Drive to the bay area. (Down Below, DUUHHHRRRR!!!!)

Day Two: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Otters and Jelly Belly

Day Three: Gilroy Gardens, Circus trees, garlic, SCBB and Giant Dipper

Day Four: Califorina's Great America, AfterDeckBurn, Pavement and LOTS of trash cans!!!!

 

 

Soo...This was my first TPR trip and it was beyond awesome! Probably the single greatest week and a half of my life, and I can't wait to go on another. Anyway here I am now, reliving the memories and sharing with everyone online through PTRs. It's kind of funny though because this is one of my first real PTR and not something stupid like Costco or IKEA or some stupid lake by my house. Although I will try my best to make this as low quality and pointless as my previous PTRs! Enjoy!

 

 

My plane flew out of Philadelphia at like 5 AM, which meant I arrived in LAX at around 11:00 which was about an hour too late to go with the sightseeing tour, so I had to loose my mind around La Quinta LAX for about six hours until the bus came for the bonus credit only people. I pretty much went insane because I was so exited for the trip but I had to wait by myself for another 6 hours, just like the plane ride I had just been on.

 

Elissa warned everybody about walking around LA, and I found that out quickly because I nearly got ran over walking across a driveway to the next door Pizza Hut. Also the Pizza Hut was connected to a Taco Bell so that automatically meant the food was guaranteed to make you sick, which it did. By the time I had eaten, ran back to my room and recovered, it was almost 12 AM! Oh Boy! Just four and a half hours to go!

 

I think I spent those four hours in the lobby browsing the park Index and watching people get off the shuttle busses hoping for anyone from TPR to get off. For the most part the time I wasted at La Quinta was just a giant blur, because I forgot all about once the TPR craziness started.

 

Natalie, Robbie and Wes showed up somewhere around 3:30 and then my roommate for early arrival day, TPdave showed up. Before I knew it we were heading to Venice beach which is were the rest of the group was, and we met up with a bunch of other people. We were only there for around fifteen minuets because the group started to head back to the bus.

 

Pacific park was fun even though they had like 12 rides. I actually enjoyed the Morgan megalite, West coaster, because it had two whole air hills, and when you rode it about five times, it had almost a fourth of the airtime of an Intiman Megalite! They also had a scrambler which lasted around ten minuets, and a larger sized frog hopper. Oh yeah, and there was a pirate ship and a bumper disk thing with a weird name. We basicaly did everything and headed back early.

 

When I got to La Quinta I went to my room and then went down to the lobby to find everybody. I didn't see anyone so I went back and fell asleep. Little did I know where they were. Check Robb's official West Coast PTR and you'll know what I mean.

 

The next day we drove for six hours! Although it was actually pretty fun. Robb handed out bags and made everyone ask him a random question. I asked who his favorite Yo Gabba Gabba character was and he said D.J. Lance because he's black. By the end of the questions Robb had announced he was devoting the rest of his life to making a life sized paper-Mache volcano with a working SCAD tower. Oh yeah and we passed by Magic Mountain and we played the "How many rides can you see operating" game. For the full four minuets the park was in view, nobody on the entire bus saw a single ride running.

 

 

For most of the drive we watched random TV shows and Yo Gabba Gabba. Although after we stopped for lunch we watched the GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE. I'm of course referring to the epic masterpiece "Shark Attack 3" which contains the greatest line of dialouge in any movie alnong with awesomeness which can't be captured in words.

 

We got to our hotel which was directly next to CGA and had snack exchange night and went to Bennigans. The End. Well, actually I'm just going to stop talking because nobody reads the written part of PTRs, and I'm basically wasting my time. Whooo!!!

 

On to pics!!!

Santa Monica Peir!!! More to come soon.

When we were there, everyone was handed these from about 15 different people.

This is the first stop, Venice beach.

La Quinta LAX.

 

Ok so I didn't actually take that picture, but I thought I should include a picture of the place where I nearly lost my mind out of boredom waiting for the bus to go to the bonus credit.

Yes!!!! I'm Finaly in L.A.!!!!

 

(your probably happier than I am that there's no more awful plane pictures)

Taking off again. My plane only stopped in Vegas.

Ahhhhh!!!! I can feel the pain just sitting here!!!!

 

 

(BTW, You must be amazed that I finaly posted a picture of an actual roller coaster!)

Wait, why am I in Vegas?

Whee landing finaly!

I found the location of the Allspark.

Ooooh preety water.

It appears as if this canyon is grander than the one I saw earlier.

Right now it appears as if I'm over either Utah or Mars. There's realy no way to tell.

Arrrrrrrrgh!!!!

Look! It's the Hollywood cookie diet! Basically if you just eat a cookie instead of a meal for about a month you'll loose 10 pounds!

For 84 dollars you can tie yourself to a rope and swim nowhere!

Wouldn't you just love to be woken up by a sonic boom?

This device will allow you to identify that the carton you are holding contains milk!

Cup cakes are mini cakes, so why would you make a cake when you can make a giant mini cake! Or have crispy brownies, because we know it's impossible to put them in cupcake trays!

Why would you buy normal coffee cups when you can buy ones that look like disposable ones!

This was my In-flight Entertainment for about three hours of the 6 hour flight. I love skymall. I find it incredibly entertaining as I am easily amused by things like furniture stores. I will share some of my favorite items from Skymall.

HOLY S##T!!!

Oooooh Preety....

If you look out you can see that thing from "Close encounters of the thrid kind"

I see a canyon.

Yay!!! Mountains!

Weeee I'm flying! Warning: the next fifteen pictures are boring useless stuff from the plane. Please ignore them. Actually just ignore this entire TR

[Jds03]

Part Two: Actual Park Pictures!!!!

This place was really nice at night. Like I said, the quality really shows.

 

Next up! The 6 hour Drive!!!

Their ferris wheel's lights were awesome! Honestly it was just as good as the lights on the one at DCA!

The peir is preety at night.

This looks like something from Bon Bon land.

look it's that thing from the movie Big! The main character is actuly my namesake! (Josh!)

 

 

Also note that it says it costs 100$

Here's the Sig Alert Ev or whatever. Even after people explained to me what it meant, I still think it's a terrible name.

There were lots of random street performers including these breakdancing people.

Oooooooooh Preety.

 

I love my camera. It makes me look like I actuly know something about photography.

artsy shot with the coaster track.

When I finaly got on the scrambler the sun was setting. That's because the ride lasted around 10-15 minuets.

Hi Paul.

Now it's time for scrambler photos! I missed the TPR takeover, so I just stayed on the side and videotaped everybody. Then Matt warned me about turning into Tony. Too Bad he ended up winning the Tony Award!

 

Here you can see one of the other Joshs (Not me) and WANK, waving.

Ok, tell me what you see in this picture. Then try to decide what those four Los Angeles Teens are looking at through those binoculars.

Oh yeah, we're on the beach.

They had some random spinning upcharge thing. It let you controll your spin for only five dollars. I said screw it, because there's a Rock-o-plane at Santa Cruz.

See? I love the claws over the supports.

Their pirate ship was actuly well themed for a boardwalk ride.

Would you like annother West Coaster photo? Of course!

"You spin me right round baby, right round."

Going Up.

I see Dave, Jen and two Mikes in the back.

I don't get this sign. Is it "West Coaster" or "West Roller Coaster"?

Look! It's the coaster's single air hill!!!

This park was in a much nicer area then Venice.

Zoom!

 

 

(Actuly, it's not really going that fast)

They had some kind of Trappeese upcharge thing.

This place had a really great entrance sign. I felt lots of attention to details around this small park and it just goes to show what parks can do when they don't spend all their money on rides.

[Jds03]

Part Three: Long Drive+ Snack Night

This is preety much what the entire drive looked like.

This is the little guy I got in the Kinder Egg!!!

 

I would post pictures from the TPR takeover of Bennigans, but I don't have any, which would make it hard to post. Try looking at someone else's PTR for the West Coast Trip as their PTRs are proably immensly better than this one.

 

Much more to come!!! Although I would strongly reccomend not reading it.

More snacks. I brought the tastycakes! They only sell them in Philly and the tri-sate area!

Snacks!!!

I'm not sure what this is but when I first saw it I thought it was a shark!!! A few other people said the same.

Pool Area! This is where we had the snack exchange night. The pool was actuly really warm, which was good because it got chilly at night in the bay area.

This hotel is AWESOME!!!!

Matt wanted the B&M coaster although I was convinced, it was a Vekoma flying dutchman. Bas and I actuly tried to find out by asking the guy in the lobby. We didn't figure out anything, execept that every employee from the hotel has their picture somwhere in the mosaic, and the theme is Avatars, going with the name of the hotel. It's named that because it's accross the street from Yahoo! headquarters.

I sleped under the Intamin coaster! I think it might have been Storm Runner but I wasn't sure...

Check it out! Everyone was so exited to see the murals in our rooms!

Our Hotel was connected to an IHOP. Words cannot describe the awesomeness of this. The only comparison is that it was as awesome as Shark Attack 3.

 

Although Elissa, who is the most awesome of all three, organized three days of breakfast buffet here, which was as close to nervana as possible.

We were also preety close to TOGO's american headquarters. Note that it is directly next to a sprits store. This is very importaint as this had a great influence on TOGO's designers in the creation of their american coasters.

Our hotel was directly next to Yahoo headquarters allong with CGA.

 

(look for the sky swing)

Yay! Were finaly at our first hotel!!!

Omm Nom Nom

 

They basicly used the same clip of the shark poping up around 15 times only with different things going into it's mouth.

Ahhhhhh!!!!!! It's the Megalodon!!!

For the rest of the drive, Dave treated us to this cinematic masterpiece.

They were selling these at the gas sation next door. Paul, who had been complaining about bloody American's proportion sizes, was very disturbed by this.

Too Bad Elissa wasn't on this drive. I was hoping to get my "Elissa eats McDonalds food" bingo square.

Mmmm, McDonalds

We stopped for lunch halfway through the ride.

Hello! Now I'm Gonna Give...All our freinds a SNACK!!!!

[printersdevil78]

Great report! I can't fathom how some of those Sky Mall things haven't ended up as Elissa Bingo prizes yet. Guess we'll just have to wait until they make their way to the Dollar Tree in scenic Lutherville, MD....

[Meteornotes]

Awesome report! Lots of fun to read. Now, some comments:

 

after we stopped for lunch we watched the GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE. I'm of course referring to the epic masterpiece "Shark Attack 3" which contains the greatest line of dialouge in any movie alnong with awesomeness which can't be captured in words.

 

This is good to see. I'm never sure if people will enjoy my nonsense, so I am happy to learn that people did enjoy the awesomeness that is SHARK ATTACK 3.

 

This is beyond awesome! I was dying when I came across this part of the PTR.

 

I love skymall

 

As do I! I actually had a copy from the plane that I was going to give out as a bonus prize, but pretty much forgot about it after I stuffed it in my bag getting off the plane. I am lame!

 

Great report! I can't fathom how some of those Sky Mall things haven't ended up as Elissa Bingo prizes yet. Guess we'll just have to wait until they make their way to the Dollar Tree in scenic Lutherville, MD....

 

As you can guess by looking at the Sky Mall Magazine, items in it are FAR TOO EXPENSIVE to be Elissa Bingo prizes! And the Dollar Store is in Cockeysville, MD. This is important to know, as it may some day be a question during TPR Trivia, and you'd hate to get that one wrong...

 

dt

[robbalvey]

This is going to be a GREAT TRIP REPORT!!!

 

This report is a perfect example of why I encourage as many trip participants as possible to write TR's.

 

Every one is so different and I love seeing the trips from other people's perspective.

 

For the record I *loved* the airplane photos! I was LOLing at all the skymall pictures and the shark, and the Allspark!!!

 

As someone who worked on the Transformers movie for nearly 2 years that caption was both hilarious and horrific for me!

 

Great start Josh! Please do more!

 

--Robb

[Paul_Hollibone]

That Monster Drink, OMG, don't get me started on the Portion sizes, i'll be going on forever!

 

Very Good josh, i'm looking forward to the rest of this one.

 

So lets see, this TR in it's first post contains 1 Mega Shark and 1 Mega Octopus. This one already deserves an award!

[hyyyper]

I'm still convinced it's a B&M and not a Vekoma Flying Dutchman.

 

Keep up the good...er...just keep up the work!

[hansrubens]

I also did read one of those skymall magazines. Are there actually people who buy that crap? At least the skymall got me entertained for about half an hour.

 

The American portions of soda are awesome although I'm glad that I'm back in Europe again (food/soda portion wise). The only thing that I miss about the sodas is the huge variety on the US market.

 

Very funny trip report, thanks for sharing.

 

 

---Hans

[Team Thriller]

Thanks for making grape soda come out of my noise jerk.

 

Funny captions, great pictures, and more funny captions. I love it.

 

--James

[Groteslurf]

Great TR Josh.

 

I love the Mega Shark picture

The zombie statue in the Skymall magazine was by far the funniest thing I found in the magazine too.

[Jds03]

Haha, Thanks for the comments everyone!

 

I didn't realize everyone would love skymall as much as I do! Just for that, I'll treat everyone to more awesome skymall products!

barking just isn't enough these days.

Havent you ever wanted to bring home the magic of Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room? Neither have I!!!

Here's something for Tony.

Bring your weights on vaction and aviod useing those aweful weightrooms at world class resorts! All you have to do is fill them up with water!

Your very own "Hang Yourself from a doorway" kit!

Train yourself to suck and blow correctly!

Just cause we can.

This device will allow you to read people's minds....ooooohh

Why brush one side when you can brush TWO!!!!

Wear this and you will be heavily respected by other divers.

[hansrubens]

LMAO...

 

What an idiots... Those magazines are really hilarious. I am looking forward to my next visit to the US.

 

-----Hans

[Groteslurf]

^^ We sure do.

 

Actually I'm glad that there are Americans thinking the Sky Mall products are strange. Last year on the plane reading the Sky Mall, I was thinking that Americans are quite weird. (just kidding, I love the USA).

This year, I actually took a Sky Mall magazine from the plane and I have it here right in front of me.

I don't have a scanner on hand and my computer is extremely slow for the moment as I'm transcoding a movie for the moment, so I can't upload at the moment, but the Pet ramp (page 26) and the 'Walk normally while wearing your snorkel or scruba fins' (page 77) are hilarious too. I'll upload them tomorrow if nobody else did by then.

 

On our flight back I was kinda disappointed it was still the same SM (ok, that not something to abreviate obviously), Sky Mall issue on the plane I would have loved to read about the new Sky Mall inventions.

[Jds03]

'Walk normally while wearing your snorkel or scruba fins' (page 77)

 

 

I was seriously about to post that one!

[Groteslurf]

As promissed

this one is funny too.

[natatomic]

^^Wait, they don't have CAR antlers? Only antlers for trucks?! I feel so discriminated against! Not every redneck drives a truck you know, SKYMALL. Hmph.

[Jojo19799]

^^Wait, they don't have CAR antlers? Only antlers for trucks?! I feel so discriminated against! Not every redneck drives a truck you know, SKYMALL. Hmph.

 

You could still purchase them. I thought about buying the antlers, but I didn't think they would look good on a 2005 Pontiac Sunfire.

 

I love reading everyone's take on this trip. I missed out on a lot of fun. We can thank work for that.

[Meteornotes]

Sky Mall usually has the ramp to get your dog up on the bed on the same page as a device to keep your dog off the bed. So potentially you could really confuse your dog.

 

dt

[Speeddeamon128]

Awesome TR so far Josh! Yay for Shark Attack 3!

[Cyber.Fiber]

I am woken by a painfully loud Sonic Bomb every morning... and it sucks...

Night Stand...

Sky Mall...

[Jds03]

DAY TWO: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Jelly Belly, penguin and inventing the spining Aquatrax.

 

Yeah, sooo..... Today was our first "official" park day at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. In terms of a Six Flags park this place was outstanding and really unique, plus the staff was friendly and the rides were well maintained. This was definitely one of the top of the line parks in the chain, in terms of quality.

 

Anyway, the tour met up with a bunch of other random TPR members as part of Bay Area Bash, and we made our way over to some of the animal sections where there were a bunch of animals for us to see (surprised?). Then we got to see a behind the scenes tiger show thing, where everyone got a chance to ask the park managers and trainers random things about the tigers.

 

Then we got half an hour of ERT on medusa, and the opp was totally awesome. He referred to the coaster as "SFDK's Parking Lot Coaster" and if that isn't awesome enough he made an ACE/buffet joke!!! The ride itself was great. The straight drop was awesome and it had a real unique layout. I like it better than GADV Bizzaro.

 

After that we got a bunch of credits in, although we got denied on our first attempt to ride Canyon Blaster (Will get to second attempt later). Then we had lunch of burgers and sausages in buns. Yes, they were not Frankfurters. Mike Austin explained on the bus they were too thick and were thus, sausages. Then a bunch of non Loony Toons/ DC mascots came out, which were specific for this park. Shouka, the whale, Odin, the tiger and Merlin, the dolphin. They entertained us for about an hour because we all have very, very short attention spans! Oh yeah, Maybe it wasn't an hour because the park brought out a penguin and everybody lost their minds and forgot about the mascots.

 

Then the WCT group left for a non credit related bonus activity! The Jelly Belly factory! I didn't get allot of photos because my camera was almost out of battery life, so I used my phone. The lines for the factory tour made me wish it was on Q-bot. Anyway we left the place with about 3 boxes worth of Belly Flops (irregular Jelly beans that don't meet the quality standards and are only sold at the factory gift shop). It only took about ten minuets for somebody to spill the entire bag on the floor of the bus!

 

Yeah, so when we got back to SFDK, Matt and I got the rest of our credits, Including the Boomerang, Tony Hawk's Big Spin (We debated how to pronounce "Gerstlauerr" and the young couple riding with us looked at us like we were retarded) and finally the kiddy credit! It was the third (first at the time) most Credit Whorish thing I've ever done, with the other two instances also on this trip! There was this rather large woman behind us who we somehow engaged in a conversation with and volunteered to ride with her son. We even agreed to give him a dollar each, so he could buy half a soda. Everything went fine excluding the part when the opp checked Matt's restraint and the kid shouted "Are you really going to give me a whole dollar forreal???"

 

So then the park winded down as we had group trivia with Robb and then headed over to the ERT coasters! I rode V2 in the same seat five times since it was the best hang time seat on the oddly shaped impulse. It was awesome looking up (down when your already upsidedown) and waveing at the GP leaving the park.

 

Then we had Tony Hawks Water Challenge! I don't know what I can say that hasn't already been said, but an important point was this was my first ERT session with TPR and it did not disappoint! If you don't know the challenge was to hold a cup of water and keep as much in the glass as possible. It basically turned into a giant water fight on a coaster, although me and pomplemus learned that we were somehow in second place and got all exited. Clearly something happened in-between the scoring of our next attempt because we had suddenly gone to eight place. We realized everyone was cheating at that point, so we decided to play dirty ourselves. We both got two cups, put one between our feet and tried to hold the other by drinking it and holding it like a hamster or something. That was a bad idea, since I started laughing and it came out my nose. That was probably too much information.

 

Anyway I'm just going to stop writing now because I clearly haven't learned to go easy on the written part because most people skip over it, and I'm completely wasting my time. Infact I could just be writing this on my computer and sending it into a void where it will never be read, meaning i have wasted a tremendous amount of time. When will I Learn!!!!?!?!?

It appears as if it is teleporting the riders here. As if it's going to a new dimension...Of PAIN!!!

 

more to come...

Oh no. It's pain time!!!

It was very curvy!

Next was Medusa ERT!!!

Ahhhh!!! look out!!! The tiger is swimming towards you!!!

GRRRRRRRRRR....... I IS NO LOL CAT!!!!

We got a Q&A session with the tiger trainers and Park Management.

Tiga.

 

Tiga. Tiga. Tiga. (anyone rember the movie Kung-pow?)

I think he prefered the taste of Cannon Vixia HF10's.

He seemed more iterested in playing with the Jell-o than actuly eating it.

OH HAI. PLZ NO PICS OR LOL-OTTER MAY COM REAL.

He liked green jello.

This guy was the best though.

Although it was nice to see some rather endangerd animals.

I don't understand why they did not bring this guy out for EAT.

Ooooooh Artsy bird photo.

Now it's time for EAT, as robb calls it! Exclusive Animal Time!

Although I could not find the connection between this park and dolphins.

This place had a much more inviting feel than some other Six Flags Parks, IMO.

I just posted annother picture of this to make this TR as painful as possible.

If you said something nerdy about new trains or something, you were WRONG!!!!! This happens to be the worlds first wooden Aquatrax!

Roar. This woodie is a first for wooden roller coasters. Do you know what makes it special?

Mega Whale Vs. Giant Elepant

Booo for Veckoma Sea Serpant!

yay for B&M sea serpant!!!

These animals have injested Play-doh.

Walking.....yeah

YAY!!! First (official) Park!!!

As you can see the coasters are very fast.

Here we are pulling into SFDK and drooling over the skyline.

AHHHRRRRRR!!!!!! NOM NOM NOM!!!!!

Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge from far away. We actually tired to take the route over the bridge but we encountered some difficulty. I will post a picture I took of why the bridge was unavailable.

San Fransisco is actuly built completly on water!

San Franscisco from the bus. It appears as if the Flash ran by in this photo to show off the new colors of his costume.

Oh wait, before I start, let me first post the last in this TR and most awesome Skymall product EVER!!!!

 

I only found it today and was completly mindblown.

[Jds03]

Part Two:

I was kind of wondering what would happen if the Penguin swam into the lake.

 

More to come!

See?

We must have taken over 1000 photos of him.

When the penguin came out, everyone was amazed.

OMG!!!!!!!!!! IT's AN EFFIN PENGUIN!!!!

ZzzzzzzZZZzzzzzZzZzZzzzzzzzz......

*YAWN*

Awwwwwwww... Shuch a Whittle Shunchkums...

Don't mess with the Otter!!!

Yay!! More Otter!!! This otter's my homedog.

Uncle Fungus?

Ehhhhh.... Whatever.... stupid aquatic mammals. "

"They....uhhh...."

"Wait... What about.......me?"

And Merlin Doesn't care for sore losers!

Shouka Doesn't take defeat so well...

You just got PWND by a dolphin!!!

And then Merlin came and totaly owned both of them.

Then Shouka showed him up again.

 

Odin is offended.

Odin makes a comeback.

Shouka Chalenged Odin to a Bohemian Rap battle.

These were the raffel prizes. Those paintings were actuly done by the animals.

Peek-a-Boo!

All the importaint people were focused on Odin, not Bingo squares.

I took this opportunity to get the Tyler and mayo bingo square. As you can see, Tyler moved and I FAILED!!!!

 

Not Peirs and mayo!!!! Tyler and mayo!!! Or Peirs and alcohol!!! It dosn't work the other way!!!!

And these guys showed up too.

And then Shouka came out and put on the show for us!

While the park management was talking everyone's Q-bot beeped in sync about every 30 secounds telling them to go to the Shouka show.

Everyone eating.

It's funny because I noticed everybody took a picture of this sign in all their Bay Area Bash, TRs and the only difference is the reflection of the different people in the glass.

I see you, Merlin!

.......It Rises!

and has sexy curves...

As you can see, it's rather unique...

This ride was awesome.

[Jds03]

Part III:

Now back to DK!

 

(Will post the rest tommorow, It's 1:30AM and I'm tired)

There were allot of picture of this guy. Don't know why though....

Although this one only carried Jelly Bellies and not the Hedrick twins...

 

(or any other TPR members for that matter)

They had one of these similar to the ones at Legoland.

This is what the inside of the factory looked like. Note this picture lacks Oompa-Loompas. That is because there were none and everyone was very disapointed.

Jelly Belly Guy on a Ballon!

 

Unfortunately, this is the last picture I could take because cameras were not allowed inside the factory. Although I will post pictures similar to what it looked like.

I didn't get allot of pictures because my camera had 5 min of battery, wich I was saving for DK. I had to use my crappy phone camera.

Now it's time for the Jelly Belly factory tour!

[Paul_Hollibone]

When walking to the park (as seen in picture 9) I remember thinking "Geeze you guys are slow walkers, there's coasters waiting for us!"

 

I don't know if anyone else heard this, but when I was looking at the Croc (or are they aligators?) I overheard some kids talking about how that was So not real. They got quite a shock when it moved!

 

And how awesome were the blue parrots? So cool looking. Once again some great photo's there Josh.