Photo TR: Rastus and Son's Coaster Festibashalooza tour 2011

[Rastuso]

Day 1

 

This was the beginning of the first pure coaster trip I've taken in a while, and it was a father son trip, since mom isn't a big coaster rider, and this trip was all about that. We took off the day after school was out to hopefully beat a lot of the crowds. I had to get to work early the day we left, like REAL early, and our flight didn't land in Baltimore until midnight, so it was a long day. Our first Comfort Inn was not too great, and the jackass next to us kept having people come to his room, even thought it was 2 am. We had to get up early too, so we could get to Hersheypark at opening.

 

We get to Hershey a little after 10, and see a HUGE line of cars and buses streaming in. NOT good. It was a Friday, and apparently every school in Pennsylvania was visiting. We get on a parking tram that proceeded to go about 20 feet to a second tram stop, and stays there for quite some time until is gets filled up. I just look at the girl next to me, who jokes we're going to pull into the other stop across the road and stay there for another 5 minutes. All the while, tons of people flooding in. We get to the entrance, which is a gauntlet of school groups, go through the turnstiles with our Club TPR discounted tickets!!, and start hoofin git back to Fahrenheit.

 

The guy at the entrance said it was a 40 minute wait. I quickly notice they don't even have 2 trains operating yet!! WTF! They decide to finally add one as we are waiting. They did add the third later in the day. NO excuse for this crap. The park was beyond busy, your newest coaster should open with all trains running. My son wants some lemonade. Hershey sends lemonade sellers backwards through the queues. Savvy, and sneaky. The lemonade, however, was weak as hell. Not sweet, not lemony. Not much more than water, and not cheap. So, they have found a way to sell flavored tap water, for $4 a glass, to those waiting in lines that are slower than they should be because of bad management. Fuck you Hersheypark, that just sucks.

 

We actually waited about an hour to ride. The ride was OK. The second, weird loop; was neat, the rest was just random loopiness. When we got off, the whole queue was full, touting a 2 hour wait. Yikes!

 

We head to Storm Runner, and I expect another full queue. Amazingly, it was a very short line. And they were running two trains. This ride is one weird ass coaster. It’s like they had a set amount of cash, and Intamin just started throwing pieces together, leftover ideas from other rides, then when the money was spent, hit the autoconnect to the station. The elements are all very original, and oddball. And the terrain allows for some VERY long drops. I really liked the double barrel roll into a drop to the ground. The strange little jog to the right at the end was random and not real fun. Al in all, a great coaster.

 

I decide we should head back to the woodies, while the lines are apparently not too bad. Wildcat had a pretty short line, which was explained once we rode it. This is the WORST GCI ever! I've never had a GCI shuffle like a Dinn. Derek told me later that the ride opened with PTCs, which apparently destroyed the track gauge. This ride needs some serious track reworking.

 

Hershey's other two GCI, Thunder and Lightnin Racers, were EXCELLENT. So, Hershey knows how to maintain a woodie. Both of those rides were smooth, long, and quite good. IT seemed like Thunder always won. And, the wait was about 10 minutes.

 

We did skip the mouse, which had a ton of cars running , but still a long line. My son rode the whip, after being denied another spinner due to puke. It is INSANELY loud, and looked to have the same action as the kiddie whip at Astroworld, meaning very little. THis is apparently a new whip, not a classic. They don't make 'em like they used to.

 

We decided to eat, and got some of the fries out of the Carnival type stand. The fries and chicken finger combo seemed to be a good deal. The fries were great, the chicken was bland. Food was reasonable, as were the games, at Hershey.

 

We went through the waterpark, which is where all the kids went. It was packed despite the cooler temps. The Super Soaker was running horribly. Only one car on the track at a time, which is simply ridiculous. The line was posted 1 hour, and not worth it. I'd love to get the credit, since I really like Pteranadon flyers, but wasn't going to wait.

 

We then head to Trailblazer, which I was really looking forward to, since I rode it during my first visit to Hershey in about 1978. This is by far the longest amount of time I've gone between visits to a park. And I don't think there are any others I went to back then that I haven't visited again..

 

Alas, they were running ONE STINKIN TRAIN, on a fairly long cycle mine train. So even though the line was short, it was probably an hour wait. My son wasn't interested, so we bailed. He fed some geese with all the food on the ground under the food dispensers.

 

We went and looked at the Comet line, but it was fairly long, and I was afraid it was pretty rough, and I didn't want to screw up my back on day one, so we skipped it,. I remember riding it a lot with my dad and brother on our first visit, and I did want to ride it, but just didn't want to risk it.

 

SO, we went to Great Bear. The line wasn't too huge, but they weren't dispatching very quickly. We ended up waiting one hour, This is a nice little inverted, and lots of fun. I'd like to know who thought it was a good idea putting the onride camera at the brake run.

 

Last up was Sooper Dooper Looper. I rode this a lot on my last visit. I recall it being a great, fun looper, and that is what it still is. Shame the public gives it no respect, as it had no wait at all. Cmon, people, this is a Schwarzkopf classic. Lap bars, smooth, terrain hugging course, and just a ton of fun.

 

We saw the first evidence of how Angry Birds is taking over the world. They had a game where you throw a ball with a slingshot at some holes. It seemed typically impossible. We also got some super-oblong squished pennies.

 

We filled our cup again, and got some of the souvenir coins, which strangely were only available at the bathroom entrances, and headed out. The day ended up not being too bad, really. Fahrenheit was the only bad line, everything else was reasonable, except for Trail Blazer.

 

We went into Chocolate World, and headed for the 4-D ride, until we found out it was $7 a person. That's a bit steep. It should be free for park visitors. The dark ride is free, and still pretty lame. I thought this had been totally redone. It had some high tech parts, but seemed as lame as back in the 70s, except for the cow animatronics. I was really expecting a final scene full of animatronic Hershey products, like the Reese's cup guy, and a Kiss. I think they are REALLY missing out here. One good, wacky scene, a la the crazy Lotte World ride, would make this a lot more memorable.

 

We got our free sample at the end, and bought a Hershey knock-off of the Aero bar, which tasted like a normal Hershey bar, and left.

 

It was a great day to start off the trip, really. Lots of new coasters for me, good weather, and decent crowds. We stopped at a little Italian place for dinner, which was pretty damn good, and then quickly got to our Hampton, which was just over the hill from the restaurant.

 

Tomorrow would be my first full day at Knoebels, ever. Yay for me, and my son!

 

Rastus O'Ginga

First coaster of the trip!

Don't worry boy, we'll be on better whips soon.

Great fries.

Such an odd looking coaster, but damn fun.

A smaller B&M Invert, but lots of fun. Hershey seems good at putting in very fun rides. Big thrills, but not too many thrills to scare off some family members.

This duck was juuuust big enough to get corn off the bottom.

Yes, Angry Birds are everywhere. This looked official, but didn't have the name Angry Birds, so I'd assume it's a knock-off. Surprising that Hershey would do that.

Milton Hershey, the Walt Disney of the East.

Hey dude, you should really be in the dark ride.

This is the extent of the animatronics. Hershey really missed the boat. The Koreans made a HELL of a lot better dark ride about candy. I still have nightmares.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Rastuso

[Rastuso]

Knoebels – June 4th, 2011

 

We awoke, after a decent nights sleep, aided by the hot tub, and left for Knoebels. The website said they opened at 11, however, the park was already pretty full at 11. I don't know when they actually opened, but I was a bit afraid of the crowds, but had faith in Knoebels' operations, which is why I chose them for our Saturday park.

 

We got in, and had to find the park office so we could charge our tickets. We decided on $40 in tickets for the two of us instead of almost $40 each for bracelets. This turned out to be BY FAR the right thing to do.

 

We of course headed straight to Phoenix. The line was way out into the midway, which upset my son, but he soon learned that lines move fast at Knoebels, and we were soon on the loading dock. They were only running one train at the moment. We get in the front seat, back car, and are off. My son wasn't sold on this coaster being great. How could it be? It's not that large, and looks unremarkable. After the first two drops, he still wasn't sold. However, once we get into the double down, and lots of other crazy airtime hills at the end, he's giggling the entire time, and loved it. He runs off and gets back in line.

 

We get back up and get to watch them manually add the second train. It took the entire crew to push the track over.. We ride near the front for ride 2, and get another awesome ride.. We go for a third round, and get an awesome airtime filled ride. The Phoenix kicks ass!

 

We then head to Twister to find that it is still running only one train. However, they start adding the second train , so I say we should have a snack while they get it running. Hey, there are prerogies and birch beer available! We get some ,and enjoy. Then we get in line as they start two train operation. The line moves pretty good, and we're soon on the strange Twister.

 

Twister delivers a lateral fest. Insane lateral fest. Fun, but really, it's a shame. This coaster would rule at most parks, but at Knoebels, it's a distant second. We get a pin and some squished pennies, and head to the Carousel. I remember my wife and I loving this on our first visit. We only had a few hours at the park before it closed, and made one of the last carousel rides of the day, and loved the ring machine. I explained how it worked to my son, and he was excited. The ride starts, and the rings come down. And, hey , my second ring is BRASS!!! I got the brass ring!!! I was giddy with excitement. A girl was immediately at my side, with free tickets, and making sure I didn't pocket the brass ring. I asked her for a picture, and she obliged. Wow, what a great day at Knoebels. I later learn that they put the brass ring in for every ride, which slightly lowered my excitement level, but still, I was quite happy, and my son quite jealous. We rode a few more times during the day, but he never got it. We did both get a few in the lion's mouth, however.

 

 

I was a bit underwhelmed by the cheese on a stick, really. It's a corndog with cheese where the dog goes. Good, but not great. We watched a mediocre 80s band play Night Ranger as we ate it along with having some blue Birch Beer. The singer was good, but the guitarist struggled a bit.

 

We then were going to hit the wood slide, but needed to go to the bathroom, which led us back to the Haunted Mansion. My son really didn't want to ride, since he's a bit skiddish of classic-style dark rides, but he did get in line. We saw Indian Snooki in line. Seriously, a group of 8 or so Indian women, all dressed in Sorris, but one was short, pudgy, and had a big poof in her hair. She was obviously trying to look like Snooki.

 

We get on after a lengthy wait, and I just loved it. This is definitely one of the best dark rides anywhere. My son was not too pleased. Once we got past the skull room, and things get crazy, he was a bit overwhelmed. He was then very startled by the car horn, which is what caused his dislike of dark rides on the Waldameer Wacky Shack many years ago.

 

We then see that we are right at Cesari's Pizza, so we get a piece of both kinds. It's weird. They cook the pizzas cheese only. If you get pepperoni, they put some on, and reheat the slice a bit. For the Sicilian, they didn't even reheat it. It was very good, however.

 

Next up we take some automatic weaponry and fire at an old school shooting gallery. Great fun! I then spot some home made potato chips, and I just have to have some. It took forever to get them, but they were quite good. Plus, it gave us something to do while it rained a bit.

 

My son then panned for gems at the mill, and I looked at the Gold Nugget remake. I really wish it was open. It looks like they totally enclosed it. I thought that at Wildwood, parts were outside, especially on the top floor.

 

My son wanted to ride the log ride, but it was down for rain. We got some more squished pennies, and saw that Phoenix was running. Wait a minute!!! It's sprinkling!!! And Phoenix is running. Oh HELL YEAH, this could be good. So, we get in line, get in a nice middle bench, second to last car, and we're off. HOLY SHIT!! These few rides were totally insane. Stand up air on every hill, and I mean stand up air. Absolutely Phenomenal. Phoenix does deserve its top 5 status, no doubt about it.

 

We Then head over to the kiddie area, but the wood slide is still down from wetness. So, we hit the Whip, which isn't the greatest. A little slow. The new kiddie coaster had a long line over the bridge, so we skipped it. My son was going to ride the swings, but someone uked. That's the second day in a row for that for him, as at Hersheypark, puke filed his ride on something.

 

He wanted to do the chairlift ride, so we hit that next, finishing up out tickets. It's a bit steep at $3 a person, but it is very unique, and adds so much to the Knoebels amiance, and give great views. It’s a really nice ride, and on the way, we saw the slide was up again. So, after our ride, we headed back there. The lady didn't even take our tickets. I lost a lot of speed on the outside wood of the slide, but still went pretty far on the landing. I think if you wrapped up well, and kept the bag between you and the outside wood, you could hit the fence on the bottom. I gotta try that some day.

 

I don't know what those sounds are.

 

We hit the carousel again, using the tickets we had bought for the slide, and called it a day. Well, not until getting some Dippin Dots to end the food barrage of the day.

 

A great day at Knoebels. This is a really magical place, as far as theme parks go. There really isn't anything else out there like Knoebels. I highly recommend a visit, whenever you can get there.

 

Oh, and they had some big pile of wood there they called the Flying Turns. I saw a video of it running on the interweb, but it wasn't running the day we were there. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be running next time.

 

Had a long drive to Allentown. Ate at Bostons, which has a horrible pasta sauce that my son hated. They offered to give him some pasta with a different sauce, without the chicken on top that he already ate. So, we pay, with a 10% internet coupon I got from checking in on Facebook, and they were charging us $10 for the second plate of plain pasta!! I argue, and had to continue to argue that $10 was pretty excessive for a replacement plate of plain pasta. We finally got it off the bill, and the tip was adjusted accordingly. Not an impressive place. We got a call from Derek confirming we'd meet him tomorrow at Dorney.

What a beautiful sight. I wish I could have it more often.

Everybody push. Let's get the line flying so folks can get plenty of rides on a phenomenal coaster.

Nerd shot.

Perogies and white birch beer. Gotta love Knoebels.

Sadly, we didn't have time for the mini golf.

Ready to reach for the brass ring?

I'm ready.

I got the brass ring!! Yay for me.

The boy reaches for a ring.

We both made a few skill shots in the lion's mouth.

It's Kozmo!

Cheese on a stick and blue birch beer. Gotta love Knoebels.

Mediocre 80s cover band.

Knoebels' wooded setting is great.

Automatic weaponry!!!!

Longest line of the day at the most excellent Haunted Mansion. DAFE's number one traditional dark ride.

Gold Nugget, not opened. C'mon Knoebels. Why don't you just go ahead and build a steeplechase and VIrginia Reel too, and never open them.

Panning for gems and rocks, not including gold, silver or diamonds.

Nudity!!!

What a fabulous park.

The unique wood slide.

Nerd shot of the slide interior.

Ready to slide.

[beatle11]

 

BOOBIES! I was there a couple weeks ago but never noticed that. The perogies were great as was the birch beer.

[Rastuso]

Dorney Park – 6/5/11

 

I haven’t been to Dorney in quite a while. I visited once, when Hercules was still crushing spines, including mine. I swear all my back issues are from my second (I know, I know) ride I had on Hercules. I realized this trip that the only remaining coaster from then was Thunderhawk. I stupidly didn’t ride the Old Mill that trip. Oh well, there are lots of new coasters here, and it’s a new park credit for my son. As we were pulling in, I noticed the car in front of me had a license plate Rollr Cst, or something like that. I was meeting Derek here that day, and amazingly, that was him. We ended up separated in parking, but met at the gate, just in time for the opening. There was damn near nobody in line. I actually got to tag someone in FB on my check-in.

 

First up was Talon, right at the park entrance. I can’t believe this coaster is as old as it is, it sure seemed like just 2 or 3 years ago it opened. I always thought it looked to be a good layout. No boomerang element, an Immelman, some non-looping track in the middle of the course. And I was right. I really liked it. We gave it a few spins, starting in the front row, and going to the back edges.

 

Next up as Hydra. As we are getting in the front row, Derek asks if I have any loose items. I say “why, is there some hangtime?”. He simply points forward to a really cool visual of a corkscrew right out of the station. I forgot about that. It looks great, but isn’t very comfortable. At least the area under it is easily accessible; as I’m sure plenty of phones end up there. It even looks like they made one patch soil instead of rocks, to help keep said phones from being destroyed.

 

Hydra as a whole is quite unique. Weird elements, not very tall of a lift, and lots of crossovers. A nice change from the usual floorlesses that are all VERY similar.

 

We then head to the kiddie coaster in Planet Snoopy. This thing had a brutal final turn that threw you left and right a few times. Gotta love kiddie coasters that are more violent than your average hyper.

 

We discuss how Dorney has lost all of its uniqueness since Cedar Fair took over. All the old time themed indoor rides are gone, along with the aforementioned Old Mill. The quirky log ride is still there, which we did ride at one point. A long, double lift, then a little bit of going around in the rocks, followed by a very long, large angle drop. The water was quite cold, too.

 

Next up was Possessed, which has a very cool sign. This was my son’s first Impulse, and my second credit for this machine. I’m not a fan of going backwards, but it was fun. We tried to get some souvenir pennies, but the machine wasn’t working. And Dorney has a very irritating policy of not giving out change unless the register is opened. I would guess this greatly reduces their coin flow in a lot of the smaller arcades and penny squishers.

 

We do the long walk back to Steel Force, only to see them turning folks away, and a guy half way up the lift. They estimate a 3 hour wait. Crap, I wanted to leave before then. We hit Thunderhawk for a decent front ride, and all climb in the Intamin first generation frefall torture device. These things have about a gazillion moving parts, and offer a bumpy ride in chairs that lean you forward very uncomfortably. Can’t imagine why this is the last one running. But, I figure it’s my son’s only opportunity ever to ride one.

 

We still see no trains on Steel Force, so we take a whip ride. Dorney’s is vintage as opposed to Hershey’s ultra-load contraption. But, one end has a pretty brutal bump in it.

 

We decide to head out for lunch, so Derek takes us to Allentown Brew Works for some very good burgers. We see a train going up Steel Force’s lift one the way out, empty, so that was a good sign. I wuss out and pass on a beer, since I had some driving to do, and my stomach wasn’t too happy in general.

 

We head back to the park, and see SF is running! So, we park and start the looooooong walk zig zagging down the hill to the furthest point away from the entrance: Steel Force. I recall all the craziness about this ride when it opened. People worshipped it. But it’s definitely a “vintage” coaster now, left behind by the highly computer engineered Hypers and Gigas of today. I wasn’t expecting it to hold up. However, it did! I was very surprised. The transitions were pretty darn good, even the return hills lacked the triangularness of other Morgans, such as Steel Eel. We decided for a reride. Derek pointed out the footers still around from Hercules’ brutal high speed turn.

 

On the way up, Derek tried mightily to get us to ride Possessed again, but I was definitely not going to, and my son even passed. They did go ride Hydra again, while I tried to find change for some pennies. My son wanted the Steel Force guy plush, which I just found out was originally the Cedar Point Banshee! So, we got change then. We later realized there was some gook on his shirt, which sucked, but it’s not too bad.

 

We decided for two more Talon rides before getting a shot glass for my son’s collection, and heading out. It was a great day, although I was really planning on a quick credit run, not leaving in the late afternoon. But crowds remained very light, and the weather was good. But, walking to Steel Force and back twice really sucked.

 

I was really looking forward to some hot tub time at the hotel we stayed at, but alas there was none. There was a hot babe giving swimming lessons, which was sorta odd. Our hotel wasn’t in the greatest area, since it was in New Jersey, but it wasn’t bad, and was pretty close to Great Adventure, for tomorrow’s festivities.

THe park wasn't too crowded today.

Possessed's very cool logo

Steel Force's return run

Hydra's low to the ground Jo-Jo roll

[Rastuso]

SFGAdv 6-6-11

 

This was probably the day my son was looking forward to most. He’s wanted to ride Kingda Ka for a very long time. I was just hoping he would be able to ride it, and that it wouldn’t be down. We had a quick breakfast, I sure wish I had invented the self serve waffle maker, I think every hotel in the universe has one now. Then we started the fairly quick drive in the land of tolls and got to the park. WHy is it that the tollroads are the ones needing the most money to fix them? My stomach was not too happy, so I stopped and bought some ridiculously overpriced Pepto in a quickie mart at the entrance. It was pretty full of kids, but luckily most were in bathing suits. I was nervous about the crowd level for today.

 

As we got to the parking entrance, those concerns vanished. No wait for parking, a VERY empty lot, and only 3 busses in sight!!!! We paid the exorbitant $17 parking fee, and parked right at the edge of preferred. As we were driving in, we saw a train launch of KK, so my son was VERY excited. We got to the entrance, used our SFOT season passes, and walked towards KK. They had a rope up going to KK/Supes/GL, and it had a pretty big crowd, but not too big. Luckily, damn near everyone headed to the new ride, Green Lantern. I never got to ride Chang, but I still wasn’t going to waste time in that line first up. We walked back to KK, get right to the station. The ride wasn’t working too well. I saw a maintenance guy around. It seemed some sensors were off. But, pretty soon, we’re parked at launch. However, we sit for a few minutes. I’m starting to get nervous. My son would be crushed if he actually sat in the ride, and didn’t get a launch.

 

We start moving backwards, but luckily only to engage into the launch dog. I sorta missed the Christmas tree, but soon enough, we’re off!!! The rattling was definitely a new feature, that I had heard about. Dragster sure doesn’t have it, and neither does Formula Rossa, which I rode a few weeks later. As for speed, I really didn’t feel like I was going any faster than on Dragster. However, it did seem like we were taller than Dragster. I know it’s only 25 feet or so, but it did seem higher. Luckily, the restraints, although unnecessary, didn’t take much from the ride. The speed hill was largely worthless. My son was pumped, and wanted a re-ride. So, we got back in line.

 

We were waiting, and they had problems again. One train was in the station, and I thought they were ready to launch. The ride ops tell them “don’t worry about the restraints, we aren’t going to launch you”, and the train leaves. This was quite amazing. Apparently it was some sensor issue again, because the train at launch couldn’t launch, so they second train was pushed forward, then brought back into the station, and the other one launched. Then the folks in the train got out. I thought this was a bad sign, but apparently they had already ridden, so I don’t know what was going. All I know is I was glad we got a second ride soon enough. I think the ride was down once we got off, and I heard someone say it was down for the day, not much later, and we didn’t see it running. So, I think we were on 2 of only 10 or so trains out that morning. Damn glad we didn’t do GL first!

 

Next was El Toro, which I was really looking forward to. The beginning of T-Express is incredible, but I was not impressed with the redundant second half. El Toro looked to be all like the first half of T-E. I decide to get a lock er, since they were only a dollar. We then get in line and are right into the station. My head starts hurting, remembering what I rode the last times I was in this station (Ultra-twister, and Viper). We go to the first row, last car, and climb in. I was a bit surprised with the ride. It did have a bit of wood feel to it, probably because of its age. I rode T-E when it was only a few weeks old. ET has been around a while, and I think it’s a good thing, because it makes it easier to call it a wood coaster. The ride delivers in spades. Incredible air time, and no stapling, which I had always heard they did. And not too much of the painful thigh crushing air time. The second half, with the low zig zagging curves, the great surprise big bunny hill. The only problem is it ends abrupty. It should continue to a bunny hill or two, and a large, fast turnaround and come up straight into the station. As it is, it is still a phenomenal ride, dare I say my #1 wood, and it craps all over T-Express, in my opinion.

 

We decide to ride it a few more times. And I must admit, this coaster is aggressive as hell, and takes its toll on you. After three rides, I needed a break. We get a drink, and I sit down as my son goes and rides the left track of Rolling Thunder. I have the credits, and know the ride is rough. They are working on the right track. He comes back, with a less than glowing review.

 

I reflect back on my initial visit, when RT was the biggest ride there. I first went when we were on a family vacation to NYC for the grand reopening of the Statue of Liberty. I recall seeing the entire NYC skyline surrounded by a 30 minute long fireworks display. It was impressive. I also recall seeing a commercial about Ultra Twister, and bought a copy of GAMES magazine that had a coaster article, include UT, and BBW. We were always planning on hitting Busch on that trip, but after learning of UT, and see the commercials, I begged for days, and finally convinced my parents to do a stop at Great Adventure. Dad and I waited in a pretty long line, where El Toro stands, to ride ride UT twice. It was such a novelty then. Of course, when it was at Astroworld, I wouldn’t even ride it every trip. Still, this area of the park is a bit sentimental to me, and I was glad to be there with my son.

 

So, we head over to Bizzaro. I realize it’s best to ride the logride, which dumps you out closer to Bizarro, so we walk on one of my favorite old style flumes. WOW, the lifts were just brutally shaky. Absolutely horrible. You couldn’t even talk on it, because every shake would effect your voice. The flume itself is still lots of fun. Long, through the treetops, and three drops.

 

We see an inflatable Coke station set up that we head into. They had it real cold inside, were blaring Michael Jackson music, and giving out free cups of Coke. At park prices, it was about a dollar’s worth of Coke that me and my son got. We went in for a second trip later, and they were taking pictures and farming for e-mails. I wanted the picture for our vacation, but I still haven’t gotten it. Maybe I messed up the e-mail and didn’t catch it. The strange thing was that they were pouring the Coke out of cans! They weren’t giving out Coke from a fountain dispenser. So, I guess that maybe they had a shitload of Coke cans about to expire, and decided to give it away.

 

I sit out Bizarro, since I had the credit from the Medusa days. I did see the big fireball they were shooting out from the El Toro lift. Looked neat, but I had had enough loops the last few days. My son really liked it. He’s a huge looper fan at this point.

 

We then ride the mine train, which my son said was horribly rough, but it’s classic Arrow mine train. A nice retro ride, and I’m glad they still have it. I then realize that we could ride the skyway and save a LOT of walking, since we can hit the Blackbeard coaster on the walk out. So, we wait a few minutes and hop on board. We get off and ride Skill Mountain, which my son called laughably bad. I love the one skull that is lit up, and pretty much nothing else. At least it was a walkon.

 

I was trying to hit the kiddie coaster, but we end up at Nitro’s entrance, and get in line. This was the longest wait of the day. Damn near an hour, which sucked because I wanted multiple rides on it. It still delivers a kick-ass ride, but I didn’t think the train was falling off on the second hill this time.

 

We then find the Looney Tunes coaster, which seemed to be a clone of the Snoopy one at Dorney, but a bit less brutal.

 

Next up was Batman, but I sat it out. I thought it was running one train, but my son said there were two, they were just stacking them every time, for a lot of time. We then go right into Dark Knight, which I was really looking forward to. The queue was a bit weird. They were only letting people inside in waves. I guess to make sure everyone was in the hot sun, and would buy more drinks. The queue was well done, and we really liked the video wall with the masks. The station was nice too, as we climbed in.

 

That is when the ride goes to crap. Now, it’s pretty obvious that the best place to theme a coaster is the lift. Everyone is looking forward. You aren’t going fast, and there are no big directional changes. So, of course, Dark Knight has zero theming there. THe lift was freakishly fast too. Not until the zig zag section, where you can’t really look at anything that you fly by. Again, putting stuff at the end of a zig would be OK, then follow with something else at the zag. But, no the few things that were there were on the straight sections. Then, a big Joker figure with a RPG is facing AWAY from you. I mean, the theming couldn’t have been done WORSE on this ride. It’s like they chose the places you were least likely to look at, and put the theming there, just to screw with you. THe only good part was the Ha-Ha tunnel What a complete waste of a decent budget, and a good idea. My son was equally unimpressed.

 

We then stopped at Panda Express before going to Blackbeard’s ridiculously long treasure train for the credit, and headed to the front. We caught the end of Mr. Six’s dance competition. From a distance, it looked like a make-up job, but if you got close, you could see it was a mask. Still, the “assumed” girl in the outfit danced pretty good to “We like to party”. Superman had a fairly short wait, we could see, but GL still had a healthy line out of the station. My son sorta wanted the Superman credit, but we were pretty tired, and I had a lot of driving to do, and didn’t want to walk a half mile to get him a credit on a coaster that my car was about 100 feet away from. He didn’t put up much of a fight, so we started our long drive, through the land of tolls, to DC, where we encountered horrible traffic. In our quest for a damn bathroom on a road that had no exits with gas stations at them, we by chance ended up in Largo, and encountered Six Flags America signs. My son really wanted to go there, but it was about 7pm, and we still had an hour or more of driving to our hotel.

 

We were about to go into the “express” lanes of our road, but I luckily saw they were backed up, so we stayed in the local lanes, and drove by miles of stand still traffic. We had to eventually join back with those lanes, so I baled into side roads, thanks to my phone’s GPS maps, and took the scenic route to the South side of DC. We easily avoided an hour or more of traffic.

 

We stopped at Steak and Shake, and get to the hotel, which luckily, had a hot tub. However, when I tried to get in it, I realized it was damn near boiling. It was WAY too hot. Foiled again.

Yay! Our season passes get us in for free today.

I do not want to pose for a stickin picture!! The tallest roller-coaster in the world is awaiting, dad!

OK, now I'll pose. That was great!

We're handing out millions of dollars of Coke!

One of my favorite log rides.

One hell of a one-two punch.

I'm just glad the preshow still worked. THe rest of the theming was crap.

I'm glad they've kept Mr. Six around.

[WFChris]

This has been a fun read! Cant wait to see more

[Rastuso]

King’s Dominion – 6/7/11

 

I hadn’t been to KD since Hypersonic was here. I remember waiting in line about an hour and a half, watching tons of empty seats go out on the trains, and not remembering the ride much at all. It was 5 seconds of a blur, for the most part. I recall it shook the bejeebies out of you, but the launch was pretty forceful. I also recall that it had one of the last of the A-list media days, where all the EC in ACE went to the park, accepted tons of freebies, and said how awesome a very non-awesome coaster was, and then said there is no A-list. Ahh, the good ole days.

 

Now, HyperSonic is gone, and luckily, Volcano is working, unlike my last visit. However, there is a new main attraction, Intimidator 305. We get to the park a few minutes before opening, and take an immediate left, past Dominator, to a chain. We skip Dominator, which is already running. We are walked back a bit, then see another group of people coming from another direction, running. So, all hell breaks loose. Luckily, the park was dead at this point. I make a wrong turn on the way, but we ultimately get to an almost empty Intimidator station, and go to front seat, last car. I had been looking forward to this ride A LOT. I love MilF, and Kawasemi. Inimidator is essentially a Giga-Mega-Lite clone of Kawasemi. What’s not to love?

 

We zip up the lift and ride down the excellent first drop, above the seat the whole way down. Then into the intimidating part, the high speed helix. I surprisingly didn’t gray out at all. More excellent airtime over the second hill, and then into the insanity filled high speed section, with excellent left-to-right switches, and one more good airtime hill thrown in, although with a very noticeable trim. The only strange section is the little jolt to the side right before the brakes. A less bizarre version of the one on Storm Runner, but still out of place.

 

All-in-all an incredible ride, and VERY aggressive. My son was not pleased. He apparently grayed out pretty badly in the helix, and was scared a bit. He decided to sit out the next ride, and then ride Flight of Fear twice while I rerode a few times. I must admit, the graying out got me on the second and third rides, pretty badly on the third, even with my exhaling/screaming technique that usually helps. I hate to say it, but this ride is just a little too much. Definetly not a marathon coaster. Although I did see one particularly geeky, older guy there doing just that. Obviously an ACEr. I really like the ride, but the helix should have a bigger radius, to lower the g’s a bit. I thought that is what they did, but apparently they just raised the last half of the helix, which does help for sure. But, I was damn near totally grayed out on the third ride, and that’s just not good, imho. I was really hoping for more rides, but I didn’t want to pass out either.

 

We head to Volcano next, which was down due to some major mechanical issue my last visit. The queue is nice, but makes you sad to remember the unique dark rides KD used to have. We decide to wait for the front, which surprisingly only had one extra train wait. Too bad they didn’t hide the first launch from riders, for a bit more of a surprise. The launches are great, the burst out of the top of the mountain is definitely cool. The rest of the ride is meh. And it really needs more. It’s half of a coaster as it is.

 

We try and get some change for pennies, and are again denied without a purchase. WTF! My son is also denied an Anaconda ride for now, since it hasn’t opened. So, we do the Stunt Coaster credit. These are fun, and I was surprised that the helicopter actually flys up at the beginning of the show scene! I’ve only seen those stationary, and figured they all threw in the towel on that animation. Now, Anaconda was open, and I gave my son fair warning of its crappiness. He returned complaining of a headache, and wanting a skull massage, which cleared it up pretty good.

 

The toboggan ride, Avalanche. I recalled this being VERY good on my one previous ride. And it did not disappoint. It’s fun, fast, with good directional changes. Our reride, however, was NOT good. Pretty horrible, actually, from an obviously bad wheel on our car.

 

We head to perhaps the only blue woodie on the planet, Ghoster Coaster. On the way, we do a detour to the Scooby-less dark ride. It’s pretty fun, if you hold your hand over the gun speaker. It seemed like they had no A/C going, so it wasn’t going to be fun in a few hours. We do a reride and go on the GC. No one was in line, and some supervisors were behind us. They immediately told one of the ops to put their shoes completely on, instead of having the back section under their heel. Appearance must be a big deal. The coaster was running well.

 

The rest of the day was a credit run for the most part. We the one side of Rebel Yell that was running, and it was decent. We hit the very good extended Wild Mouse. My son hit a few flat rides while I searched for a good place for lunch. I found a diner on the VCU campus that was on our way to Williamsburg.

 

My son had no interest in the stand-up, and I warned him about Hurler, so he skipped that too. Grizzly was closed. Plus, it was getting hot for the first time in the trip. Because of this, the line for the log ride was quite long, so we skipped it.

 

I always think of KD as a very lopsided park. THe right side has damn near nothing, while the left side is huge. Comparing it to KI where the park is fairly centered around the Eiffel tower, it just seems off.

 

We decided to wait for Dominator, against my better judgement. I had the credit from Gueaga Lake, and am not a big fan of ultra-loopy floorlesses. Plus, the ride was pretty rattly for a B&M.

 

We pretty much called it a day after a bit of shopping. KD is a very average park. Intimidator is phenomenal, although I'm not a fan of greying out. Everything else is pretty "meh". If they would ever add the second half of Volcano, it would be world class too.

 

The place we stopped to eat,the Village Cafe, was pretty good. Nice ambience, very good food. Although I was asked for money on the way in, and my son got pretty nervous. I had high expectations for our chocolate cake dessert that were not met at all. I guess we should have gotten a shake. Still, this is a good place, and not too far from the interstate.

 

We made the drive to Williamsburg, and into our Sleep Inn. I had to complain twice to get a room with a good AC that wasn't ultra noisy. We relaxed in the pool and got a good rest. The heat was to turn up quite a bit the next day.

By far the best ride in the park.

Nerd shot

Unfortunately, due to a clerical error, this ended up being my son's 150th coaster. Which makes me jeolous, since I was almost 30 before I had 150 coasters.

No Scoob, sorry

A cool color, and a quite good ride.

Obligatory shot

VIllage Cafe

I thought Max was dead.

[gisco]

Nice trip report. I like that it is not just pictures.

[simon8899]

I thought Max was dead.

 

If I'd be a United Artists lawyer I'd park there and wait till they tow me - and then would sue their asses off....

 

http://007.graphicallstars.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/zorinblimp02.jpg

 

It's quite clear they took their company logo from the Bond movie....

[Rastuso]

WOW, yeah, even the logo looks similar. Thanks for digging up that screen shot.

 

-RO

[Rastuso]

TR: Busch Gardens Williamsburg – 6/8/11

 

This would be our last theme park of the trip, and one of my favorites. This would be my forth visit. The first was in 1986, after I discovered that the failed Bat coaster at King’s Island had an operating cousin called the Big Bad Wolf. I begged my parents to swing by on one of our family vacations, and we did!! Sadly, that awesome coaster is no more. The coaster that drew me to the park the 2nd time, Drachen Fire, is also gone. The only new rides since my last visit are the kiddie coaster, and Griffin. However, this is my son’s first visit.

 

We start the day seeing Bert and Ernie. I get photo with them, and threaten Bert, telling him I’m keeping an eye on him. We nervously turn our back to them, and head into the park. BGW always uses a staggered opening, so we head to Sesame Street land, and ride the Air Grover there. Nothing special, and the area seems almost identical to the one in Tampa.

 

Then, we head to the venerable Loch Ness Monster. My son is a bit worried after a brutal Anaconda ride the day before. I tell him LNM is infinitely better, and hope that’s still the case. I was surprised that they gave me no hassle about my camera bag, or the bottles of water in my cargo shorts. We hop in and are off. The brakes have tamed it from the crazy rides it delivered decades ago, but it’s still fun, and not very bad in the head banging department. I’ve still never gotten a dueling loop ride.

 

By this time, the rest of the park was open, so we headed off towards Apollo’s Chariot. We were side tracked by Escape from Pompeii, which was a walk on, but wouldn’t remain as such, since this was supposed to be the first truly hot day of our trip. I like this ride a lot, it’s fun. And the girls on our boat weren’t too obnoxious. We get a squished penny, and then get to AC. We get a locker, which was only 75 cents, iirc, dumped my stuff, and head for one of my favorite B&Ms.

 

We start with a back row ride. It delivers a great ride, with great cool sections at the valleys near the river. It seemed a bit sluggish compared to my rides 5 years ago. We end up riding 4 times total, including a front row ride, since the line was pretty much nothing. I’ve learned to avoid riding in front of teen girls, especially certain ones that look to be obnoxious. We even skipped a train because of this. All in all, AC is still a fantastic coaster, with a great setting.

 

I could see that the rapids ride had been e-stopped and drained from the AC lift, so we skipped it and made the looong trek over to Oktoberfest. We paid our respects to the BBW footers, looked at the unimpressive new drop tower, and my son hit the swings. While he rode, I actually got a call on my cell from work. That’s usually not a good thing, but this ended up being fairly harmless.

 

Curse of Darkastle was next. No wait at all, and they weren’t even using the preshow room, you just walked through. The ride had been surprisingly changed. I think 2 scenes had been totally nuked, replaced with others. Plus, a few other things seemed different, like some lighting, the fire place, and even a couple of scenes seemed different. I’d love to know the full history of this ride. Plus, it’s still distracting that the beginning and ending of the scenes are obviously not playing at the right speed, and the moving points of convergence are off. Still, a fantastic ride for a non-Disney/Universal park, and my son approved too. However, my first ride was off. Somehow, the glasses I was wearing totally removed the 3-D effect. Like both lenses had the same polarity or something. I thought my eyes were going bad. Thankfully, the second and third rides looked fully 3-D.

 

We were getting hungry, and I’d never seen the Oktoberfest show, so we headed to the Festhaus. The food wasn’t all that appetizing for me, but I got a black forest ham sandwich, and the boy got the sausage platter. I also got a beer, because, you know, it’s the Festhaus. The meal was decent. The show was fairly short, and the small crowd didn’t get too into it, but it was a nice diversion for lunch. The chicks were fairly hot. I was hoping for the Clark Griswald slap-in-the-face dance, but it never happened.

 

Next was Alpengeist. The monster inverted. No real line, so we waited for front row. I do really like it, but my son wasn’t much of a fan, surprisingly, because he loves loopers. I think he was about coastered out after over 40 new ones in 6 days. Due to a clerical error, we thought Alpie was his 150th, and instead celebrated at Griffin. However, upon returning and really looking at my coaster count spreadsheet, his 150th was actually Anaconda. Ha-Ha!

 

It was getting pretty hot at this point, so we decided to wait in the fairly long log ride line. I’ve never ridden it, so we toughed it out. It was probably 30 minutes of watching empty logs and logs with one person in them come down the drop. Could the ride ops be suckier? The ride is pretty good, although short.

 

The last coaster of the trip was Griffin. We went to the front, since there was no wait. The front really improves these rides. I rode Sheikra in the last row. The hold brake on the first drop really enhances the front row experience. Still pretty short, but the initial hold in the front row, and drop, are quite fun.

 

We stopped by the bird habitat, and bought some nectar, which wasn’t really cheap, but worth it. I was immediately swarmed with birds when I brought it in. I gave the cup to my son when it was almost empty, since I figured the bird would take it from him. He did spill some, but ended up having a bird fighting him for the almost empty cup. As soon as the nectar was gone, the birds dropped us like a dirty whore, and moved to the next cup bearing person.

 

We looked at some of the other animal exhibits, especially the bald eagles, but were getting pretty hot at this point. We decided to give the new simulator a try, Europe in the Air. It was advertised as all new HD. So, we did the loooong trek in thankfully air conditioned hallways back to the show building, and went right in. The video was pretty good, but the motion was not great, and out of sync enough to cause a bit of vertigo. No real story line, and definitely not worth a long wait.

 

We wanted to do Pirates!, but didn’t feel like waiting almost an hour for the next show. So, we got some souvenirs, novelties, and party tricks, and walked out. I still love Busch Gardens, and can’t wait to ride their new coaster. Hopefully it won’t be five years before I return again. We had a pretty long haul back to the outskirts of DC. I was surprised how you can see basically none of King’s Dominion from the road. I’m just so used to looking at King’s Island as I pass by.

I'm watching you, Bert!

TIme for some Godly rides.

That ravine is getting awful crowded over my visits through the years.

Not Spidey, but still damn good.

Festivus-house

Alpie just looks awesome.

The start of the meme of the day, but the bird is not really on his head.

Nectar, yummy yummy yummy

I'll peck your eyes out for that nectar

THis bird is on my head, and apparently likes my special mixture of sweat and hairspray.

Where else can you be so close to so many bald eagles.

Luckily this bird was again not on his head. That would hurt.

Sadly, our theme parks had come to an end, and this was our final exit.

[Rastuso]

Washington DC – 6/9/11

 

Well, the last day of the vacation had arrived, and sadly there were no coasters on the itinerary. Instead, we packed up a little better, left our hotel room, and headed to Washington DC. We parked at the Ballston Common Mall. They have a huge parking garage that is only a couple of miles from Ronald Reagan airport, and you can take a medium length indoor walk from the garage, through the mall, to a subway entrance on the orange train. This train will then take you to the Smithsonian station, which drops you off in the heart of the Capitol Mall area. It only cost about $7 round trip per person I think, and parking was around $10. MUCH better than trying to drive down there and pay through the nose to be at a garage waaaaaay away from everything. Plus, the time from the garage to the airport was only about 15 minutes, and fairly isolated from general rush hour and traffic issues.

 

Today, it was HOT. Luckily, our hotel fridge had a freezer, so we started with 4 frozen bottles of water. But, those disappeared quickly. We started by walking to the Washington Monument. Sadly, the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial was under construction, because that was one thing my son was looking forward to seeing. From there, we walked down to where we could see the White House. I wanted to flip it off, just in case Barack was looking out the window, but didn’t want to cause a national incident. We were already sweating, so it was time to hit the museums. On the way, we saw a Segway tour. Now THAT’s the way to go. If we ever revisit, I’ll be looking into those. A Segway is PERFECT for DC. There are long distances between a lot of things. I would think a three-four hour Segway tour could take you to basically every monument and memorial in the Capitol area. It was too hot today for it, but in the Spring or Fall, it would be perfect. Parking is basically non-existent, and very few of the memorials have any, so you have to park in a garage and walk. And you are looking at miles of walking, so a Segway is the way to go.

 

We first went to the American History Museum. It was quite obvious that it was PACKED. Full of school kids. We went through a section on colonial housing, one all about the various wars, which was pretty good, and of course the pop culture area, which sadly was under construction, so very little was out. Some awesome early Muppets were displayed, along with the obligatory Archie Bunker chair, Dorothy’s slippers, and the saddest item, a Lou Gherig baseball, since my died had ALS.

 

There were a bunch of random pop culture items in the lower level too. We were quite hungry, and there is no option in the Mall area except in the museums. So, of course, the deli on the bottom floor was INSANELY expensive. We paid something like $20 for two hot dogs and a large drink. So, yes it’s free to get into the museum, but if you eat there, you pay an admission.

 

Souvenirs were pretty crappy too. Not much Smithsonian related, just normal stuff extremely overpriced. Even the squished pennies where 75 cents instead of 50. They had these little coin type things for a dollar that were Smithsonian related, but the stuff on them was very random and dumb.

On the way out we noticed we missed the flag exhibit which is the flag that inspired the national anthem. Pretty cool!

 

We next went to the Natural History museum. On the way we bought two ice creams. Since it was on the museum ground, it was expensive too. I did see one ice cream truck on the street that I assume was much more reasonable. Man, I should move to DC and open a food truck on the Mall. It would make a killing, unless the political bastards tax the hell out of you, which is my assumption to explain the death of food options on a Summer afternoon.

 

This museum was even MORE packed. Downstairs, where the only open bathroom was, which smelled of death, was wall to wall kids. This museum was fairly lame, imho. It had a lot of fake and stuffed animals hanging and placed on display, but it made it just a stuffed animal museum. There was a section on cave men and such. The coolest, and I would have missed it, but my son really wanted to see it, was the gem section. First, you can see the Hope Diamond. Or a fake Hope Diamond. Who knows, but my guess is it’s fake.

 

However, the rest of the gem section was filled with all sorts of really cool, uniquely colored and shaped stones of all sorts. These things were just awesome. We made it through most of the gem section before our departure time arrived.

 

My son was NOT wanting to leave. And I did really want to see the aerospace museum, but it wasn’t going to happen. If Knoebels ever opens up the damn Flying Turns, we’ll be returning to the area for sure. So, we may have to revisit DC and do a Segway tour also.

 

We had to stand most of the subway trip back, but the trip to the airport was traffic free, even at 5 O’Clock!!! I highly recommend parking there if you are visiting the DC Mall area.

 

The flight home was uneventful. This trip was awesome. A great bonding time for me and my son, and sadly reminiscent of some trips I did with dad when I was younger. My son really wants another trip next year. It may be a little less coaster centric so my wife can come too, but we’ll see. I was surprised how well I held up to the schedule and coasters. I hadn’t done a major coaster trip in a while, and it’s nice to know I can still handle it. I guess I should go on another one next year. The time will come when 50 coasters in a week will be too much. Hopefully that’s quite a ways off, but you never know.

BEFORE it was cracked!

I really wanted to see the new ape statue, but it was too long of a walk.

So, how's that black president idea working out?

Weird creature.

Mutant Muppets

Julia Child's kitchen.

The stars and stripes

Rocks of all colors

Now that's a quartz

Aurum

Cool

ANd some glow in the dark!

It was not anywhere close to as cool as in the movie. I guess it only gets cool later on.

Still the greatest country in the world, even with all the boneheads there.