rosscoe Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Gotta love the color pencils at lunch, well some did! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosscoe Posted October 22, 2014 Share Posted October 22, 2014 Still waiting, stop watching football! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbottgen Posted October 22, 2014 Share Posted October 22, 2014 Still waiting, stop watching football! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barge84 Posted October 22, 2014 Author Share Posted October 22, 2014 Still waiting, stop watching football! There aren't any games on Tuesday night, Ross. Just Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Then sometimes later in the season they'll have Tuesday and Wednesday college games! I've been really busy with my house purchase, so I'd be shocked if you see anything until November from me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteornotes Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Just got caught up on this. Very entertaining. The 2009 version of this trip is among the greatest experiences of my life. I really hope Elissa got attacked by Orki again at Hansa park. dt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 I've been really busy with my house purchase, so I'd be shocked if you see anything until November from me. How dare your real life interfere with our entertainment! Take your time, Thad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coaster Dooey Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 Still waiting, stop watching football! I've been really busy with my house purchase, so I'd be shocked if you see anything until November from me. Have you checked your calendar lately, Thad??? At this rate you should have this TR completed just in time for the 2016 Scandi trip! heehee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 ^Have you people no concept of "delayed gratification"? Some TRs must age like fine wine before they are ready to be poured (or posted). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barge84 Posted November 21, 2014 Author Share Posted November 21, 2014 Still waiting, stop watching football! I've been really busy with my house purchase, so I'd be shocked if you see anything until November from me. Have you checked your calendar lately, Thad??? At this rate you should have this TR completed just in time for the 2016 Scandi trip! heehee Sorry, Ben! I was just thinking that I still need to get you that video. Sorry, life has gotten in the way lately, and I didn't have internet for about 2 1/2 weeks. Hopefully, I'll get back into it next week. And Chuck's right, you can't rush greatness*. *This TR is not great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPDave Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Some TRs must age like fine wine before they are ready to be poured (or posted). Some age like fine wine, some putrefy like roadkill on a warm summers day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperShawn Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 some putrefy like roadkill on a warm summers day. That sounds way more like Thad! Seriously Thad, stop making your house a home and post the next update from your Scandi diary! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Some TRs must age like fine wine before they are ready to be poured (or posted). Some age like fine wine, some putrefy like roadkill on a warm summers day. Can't we all just get along? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barge84 Posted November 21, 2014 Author Share Posted November 21, 2014 Dave and I are like oil and water. I'm glad he lives across the pond. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scandinaviour Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Is it time to open the bottle of wine yet? Or has it transformed into eggnog so we have to wait until christmas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barge84 Posted December 11, 2014 Author Share Posted December 11, 2014 Yeah, I've been slacking. I haven't given up, just been really busy with my job lately. Soon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Priscilla Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Take your time, Thad. ...and if you don't feel like finishing Lego Land before moving onto the next park, well that would be just fine by me too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barge84 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 There's been some progress. I actually thought about writing last night. That's a start! I actually think I'll write some tonight. Since it's about -5 F here, I won't be doing anything outside for awhile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 ^Isn't that a normal January day in Iowa? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barge84 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 The last 2 years? Yep. It's been horrible. I'll gladly take your Williamsburg winter... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 ^Yes, winters are much easier to bear in the 'Burg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPDave Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Stop padding for time and write up the next park Thad, we're waiting!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbottgen Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Wow, how can you have snow still? It was 45°F yesterday out here in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, and I just came back in from a fire drill where it was almost 50°F out there. What is this snow excuse that you are talking about? Now on the other hand, I did have double digit negatives all last week. We never did get above 0 all last week. Maybe things are just slower out there in Iowa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barge84 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 What is this snow excuse that you are talking about? Huh? Stop drinking during the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbottgen Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 What is this snow excuse that you are talking about? Huh? Stop drinking during the day. But how else am I suppose to survive putting up with over 150 12-13 yr. olds hyped up on Monster and junk food everyday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barge84 Posted January 12, 2015 Author Share Posted January 12, 2015 (edited) Day 7 – LEGOLAND Bilund – Part 2 Click HERE if you missed Part 1. Well, here we are. It’s been a short 3 months since my last actual update, but the drought ends to…day. A lot has happened since we’ve last seen each other. Seasons have changed, the holidays are over, and I received this “Christmas” card in the mail from some people in Australia. I’ve been nice enough to censor it so you can’t figure out all of the bad words that were used. I also can’t figure out why it’s not turned horizontally, but I don’t really care. Turn your head. Oh good! A Krampus card!!! Well. I guess that was kind of nice... You can feel the love oozing out of that card, can’t you? Thanks Steve and Priss! That was easily my favorite card this year. Let’s finish up this LEGOLAND trip report, shall we? When we last spoke, some of our group (everyone but me) rode the log flume, some of them getting pretty wet in the process. Not far from there was the Pirate Splash Battle. These rides have become pretty common in the States recently. I’ve never actually taken the time to ride one because I’m averse to getting wet, but it looks like people have a pretty good time. Joe, Chris, Adrian and Cary decided to give this one a shot, while the rest of us observed/checked out the shops. This was easily the largest splash battle attraction that I’ve seen, and it looked pretty well themed. A lot of the ride is hidden from view, but our friends told us that there were a lot of battle areas. They were pretty soaked! We got a little wet trying to spray the passing boats with the spectator water cannon. Unfortunately, the pressure wasn’t at full strength, so you’d barely get the people on the boat, but they could soak you if weren’t careful. A well done Splash Battle. The spectator cannons didn't work very well. Here's comes a boat full of TPR nerds. Getting closer... Here’s a video of Steve trying out the cannon. I’m not sure who the jackass is that’s yelling at him. As you could plainly see in the video, the cannon didn’t work. It became more fun waiting for random people to take a turn shooting it, only to find out that they were going to get pretty wet in the process. A little more shopping was done, then it was decided that everyone should ride Viking River Splash. Since I was already kind of wet, I gave into peer pressure and decided to ride. This was one of the times where it was really nice having our fastpasses (I can’t remember the name of the passes) at the park. There was a decent wait, but our entire group of about 11 or 12 was let in, right to the front. We boarded two separate rafts since there were so many of us, and I started to worry about that final drop. Having done no research on this park, I had no clue that there was a vertical lift rapids ride until we walked past it earlier that morning. I don’t even think that I knew that that was a thing. I’ve had some bad luck over the years on rafts with big drops. I tend to end up being the person with their back to the water at the bottom. I’m sure it has nothing to do with me being the biggest person in the raft. Damn you, science! For the most part, the ride was pretty tame. I’m not sure if it was toned down because of the lower temperatures, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen people get less water on them. You just kind of go around and around, talking to people as they’re walking past the ride. Then, at the end, you get to the VERTICAL LIFT! These are the kinds of things that I for, ladies and gentleman! Watching the specs on the rotary girder initiate the engagement of the chain dogs is something to behold. I could watch it all day long! Enough about that… Our raft was next in line. Up we went, which was kind of an uneasy feeling for some reason. I’d always heard how strange Pilgrim’s Plunge was, but it was closed the only time I’ve ever been to Holiday World. At the top we realized that Adrian and Harrison (I think it was Harrison) were pretty much screwed. We all laughed with delight as they plunged down the hill backwards, and got hit by a pretty big wave of water. I laughed and laughed! My parents always told me I was a treasure. Who wants to get wet? A very rare vertical lift rapids ride. Going down... After we exited, we had a little bit of time to kill before the TPR Takeover of the Falck Fire Brigade. While we meandered around the park, I found a great new look to go with my pink shirt that Steve loves so much! I'm a warrior princess! Once I’d stocked up on all the latest Scandinavian fashion, it was still about 15 minutes before the takeover was going to happen. Little known fact about me… I love penguins. Love them. Always have. My family used to hate whenever a zoo would have penguins, because I’d stand there forever, waiting for them to do anything. For some reason, all of the zoos near us had very docile penguins. Didn’t matter to me, I still thought they were awesome. The penguins had a pretty impressive viewing area. Large windows allowed guests to see both underwater and above it. The penguins were getting cleaned and fed while I was watching them, so they were pretty feisty. The windows allowed you to get some great shots of the penguins swimming. Yay! A penguin. It was a decent viewing area. You could get their attention pretty easily through the glass. This is where Tennessee Tuxedo retired to. Ross is just chilling. I said goodbye to my new penguin friends and started walking back towards the rest of the group. When everyone had shown up, the entire group got in the queue. The ride ops made a deal with us. They’d alternate between letting TPR do a takeover, then let the GP ride, then let TPR do a takeover for the remaining group that didn’t get on the first time. That seemed fair. We were in the first grouping of trucks, and it was me, Joe, Steve and Priscilla. Robb was recording us, and of course we were running our mouths about how we were going to kick everyone’s ass. Robb told the group to wait so that we could get a group picture, but of course a couple of trucks took off. Cheaters! Steve and I were responsible for making the truck move by using something similar to the handle on a railroad hand car. We were going crazy on that thing, but the truck wouldn’t move. After about 4-5 seconds of us not moving, Robb reached in and hit the joystick that chooses what direction your truck moves in. We finally took off, but most of the trucks were nearly to the other side by that point. As usual, we made complete fools of ourselves… When we finally reached the other side, we hopped out. Joe and Priscilla starting turning the cranks that made the fire hose shoot water. Of course, Steve and I were just standing there watching, not realizing that we were supposed to be aiming the hoses! They were spraying everywhere, until Priscilla said something like, “Are you going to aim them?!?!” Oh, yeah, I guess we should do that. Needless to say, we were the second to last group to finish. All that trash talking, on video no less, followed up by that ridiculous performance. Time to slink away… Not our best effort... The group was leaving the park in a couple of hours, so we wanted to make sure we saw the rest of the park before it was time to leave. In the back corner of the park, behind the Polar Xplorer coaster, was the building that hosted the Robo Coaster attraction. I’ve seen similar rides like this at EPCOT, using a KUKA robotic arm to whip riders around on their custom chosen ride program. We used our fastpasses to skip another line, and we were picking our ride program in just a couple of minutes. The interface for this was simple to use, giving you a screen with quite a few different options, depending on how crazy you wanted your ride to be. Cary and I paired up, and tried to make our ride as extreme as it would allow us to. We swiped our card, and it said that the ride program had been saved. After you complete this part, you proceed to the actual waiting queue. LEGOLAND was at least smart enough to buy a lot of the arms. I think there were around 10-12, but I could be wrong. You’re led up a stairway, then across a pit, where all of the robot arms are stored. It’s pretty dark inside the building, but it bright enough so that you can see each of the rides while they’re cycling. Cary and I chose to go left because the line looked a little shorter. We had to wait for a couple of ride cycles, but it wasn’t too bad. We both climbed into our seats and pulled down on the restraints. The computer was saying that the restraint wasn’t down far enough. The ride op released both of them, and got mine to click 3 times with Cary’s help. Cary jumped back into his seat, and they got 3 clicks on his restraint. His said it was ok, but mine didn’t. I didn’t get to ride, but I guess if there’s something that I don’t mind missing out on, it was this. More motivation for the next trip! Robocoaster. Stupid restraints. The exit of the Robo Coaster takes you right past the entrance to Polar Xplorer, so we decided to use our fastpass for one more ride. There was probably about a 30-40 minute wait at this point, but we only waited for 1 train. I love fastpasses!!! It was another fun ride on Polar Xplorer, but I think that ride was covered in detail during my previous report. With all of the rides out of the way, we had some time to finally walk around and check out the LEGO displays. We all kind of split up at this point, taking in the displays at the speed that we wanted to go. A few of us checked out the observation tower as well, getting a bird’s eye view of the park. I have to say that the displays are really incredible to look at. The detail that was put into them is just ridiculous. Moving trains, cars, boats, etc… Bridges that go up and down and a working lock and dam. There was a ton of really great stuff to check out. Rather than blab on about it too much, I’ll just let the pictures (and videos) do the talking. Pretty cool They had the music from the bar scene playing in this area. What the hell's an Aluminum Falcon? Don't remember this. More of the same... Lots of Chewbacca creatures. This is what I look like when I walk on ice and snow. More of Hoth. Panoramic of Hoth. From the prequels... Some sort of palace. I'm running out of captions. I think that's the Starship Enterprise. Maybe not. These remind me of the new automobile that was created on an old South Park episode. For the life of me, I don't remember any scenes like this. Another display. These 2 spun around and "fought" each other. Nerds on the monorail. Steve, Jake, Shawn, EB, Jere, and I think Ross... More ships. So many captions to write... Flying in circles. Save the Ewoks, Chewy. I remember this scene! Not this one, though. Hey, it's not Star Wars related! They do an amazing job with these. Trains, boats, cars, etc... They all move. Very cool. Going up so we could get a bird's eye view of the area. The park is bigger than you'd think. Surprise! Another beautiful park in Scandinavia. Weird... Some sort of castle. This would take me 10 years to build. A recreation of the airport right next to the park. The planes would taxi up and down the runway. Very cool! Another city scene. Back to the airport. A panoramic of the airport. They definitely go all out. I think that's the plane I took to get to Copenhagen. Shooting water! Another beautiful scene. More big buildings. Yep, another building. I think they like red. The park wouldn't let me near this church. They said that I'd burst into flames. Trains! So detailed. Windmills and water. Something you don't see much of in Denmark. I love how they trim all the bushes to look like little trees. I'm not sure why I didn't take the opportunity to act like Godzilla. This reminds me of a cable car in the town that I grew up in. Another church. Hey, we must be close to WDW! This was really well done. People are gathering for today's launch. Probably as close as I'll get to seeing any of this. Safari ride for kids. Just like Animal Kingdom. Red butts. Tee hee! Sick of LEGO yet? I am... One last city setting picture... Rawr. After I’d had my fill of LEGO for the year, we all met up and started working our way towards the exit. There was still about an hour until we had to leave, but we’d ridden everything and the crowds were seemingly getting larger and larger. We chose to just take it easy, sitting on benches and chatting. We also had to make a visit to the Official LEGO store. I bought something for my niece and a fridge magnet for myself, but that was it. Everything was ridiculously overpriced, but it’s nothing you wouldn’t expect to see at any theme park. We were ready to head back to the hotel, and it just so happened that the rest of the group was too. Off to the buses. We said our goodbyes to this great little park, and made the 90 minute drive back to where we were staying. Big pimpin' This was supposed to be a goofy picture. Apparently we aren't very creative. If I were to ever purchase anything LEGO, this would be it. Lady Liberty! Goodbye! Thanks for an awesome day!!! After returning “home”, a few of us found a restaurant and had a nice sit down meal. The owner/cook didn’t speak a word of English, so it was our first really interesting experience. Somehow, it all worked out and we had fun sitting around chatting and eating. I’d just started getting sick, so I wanted to get some rest that night. After finding some cold medicine, it was back to the room for the night. LEGOLAND definitely surprised me. I thought I’d be bored out of my mind, but it was one of the more entertaining days of the trip. I’ll need to check out some of the American parks whenever I’m in the area. I promise it won’t take 3 months for me to put together another update. Thanks for being so patient! ps. Click HERE if you missed Part 1 of this Legoland trip report. Edited January 12, 2015 by robbalvey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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