derwood Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 ^weren't we hanging out by some lockers during the walkback? Great pics so far Eric! d Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 ^weren't we hanging out by some lockers during the walkback? Great pics so far Eric! d Most likely we were on our way to some lockers, rather than actually near them.... Either that or we were doing dark rides/water rides because it was the hottest part of the day and we weren't allowed at any other time.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 Thanks everyone, I'm gald everyone is enjoying my photos. Day 3: Alton Towers One of my two favorite parks on the trip. I now think Busch Gardens Europe/Williamsburg has competion as most beautiful park in the world! Alton Towers was gorgeous! From the extensive landscaping, amazing historical castle and awesome rides. Nemises was fantastic. Hex was my favorite flat ride for the entire trip, very cool. Now I present Alton Towers, enjoy! --Eric J I wish my yard could look like this! Absolutly amazing! Very nice! Once inside the park, you can't help to appreciate the beauty of the grounds. TPRer's hiking their way to ERT! To get to Alton from the hotel we hiked a scenic path through the woods and gardens. We had to take many curvy old country roads through quaint villages. To get to Alton, we traveled through more beautiful English countryside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 More Alton Towers Pics: Charlie's Angels has nothing on James, me and Tommy! My Rommie (Paul/Carnage) and me hanging out at the Towers. Oblivion was fun. I do love Shiekra at my home park. But got to give Oblivion love, it was the first! Now try to run as fast as you can! Kids on the playground! Got to ride Alton's new attraction: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I thought it was pretty good, I never rode the Toyland Tours ride before, so I couldn't compare. I did enjoy the elevator part at the end of the attraction. Next up was Spinball Whizzer, a lot of fun, similar to Dragon's Fury at Chessington but I liked Dragon's Fury a little more. These TPRers are grateful they rode before John's camera of doom broke Rita! Dave and Rich are ready to ride Rita! 1st thrill of the day was an hour of ERT on Rita: Queen Of Speed. Hex was awesome! Everything from the preshow/ theming and ride were great! I guess it doesn't hurt to be housed in a real castle! This was my first time on a madhouse/spinning room ride, Boy can these type of rides mess with your head! I loved it! Duel was a cool shoot out dark ride with great theming. Other than Popeye at IOA, Alton's Congo River Rapids is one of my all time favorite river rapids rides! The Runaway Powered Mine Train was pretty good. Not to shabby, a pretty good spread! Lunch time! Must dry off! Little do Rich, Melanie, & Larry know what they are in for- Giant scary rubber ducks and lots of water! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 More Alton Towers Pics: Jim enjoying a ride on the UG Swinger. Yeah baby! Jim's a swinger baby! Ted and Tommy chilling out after knocking off some haters on Duel- Word! I wonder why Tommy and James are enjoying the Squirrel's Nut's Ride?, Woops I mean the Squirrel Nutty Ride! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 The next bunch of photos are from The Towers. I promise coasters and more park pictures are coming up. The castle was amazing. I could of spent a whole day just exploring the ruins and grounds. The Inside rooms were imense and very quite, kind of spooky. But very cool! Flowers were everwhere! Did I mention the view? The view from the castle was breathtaking! Tommy, James and Jim chilling on top of the castle. This Stained glass window was in one of the gigantic main rooms. Inside the rooms were huge and very quite, almost to quite! The Towers dates back a few hundred years. We almost missed going into the Towers, but with a little investigating we found our way in. I am so glad I did the castle! I loved it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 Ok as promised, back to more fun theme park stuff! It was pretty messy! Allright fanboys here is your chance to see Elissa all soaped up! So I'm walking to my room, when all of a sudden Elissa and Dan come flying out of a room in total soap fight mode! Interesting but entertaining lounge singer. Our dinner group, clockwise: Dave(methos), Jodi, me, Nicole (nicolah), Derek (Derek Rx), Ted (coasterfanatic), Catrina (iamaprincess), Paul (carnage), James, and Tommy. I think James may have tied or outdid me for having the most girlest drink on the trip! After our first day at Alton, a bunch of us went over to The Alton Towers Hotel for dinner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 Before we headed out to Drayton Manor we had 2 hours of ERT on Nemesis and Air before the park opened! Very cool! Did I mention how great the theming was and how much I loved this ride! I think Nemesis has tied with Montu at Busch Gardens Africa/Tampa Bay as my favorite Inverted Coaster! Nemesis was one of my top 3 coasters of the trip! I loved Nemesis! Our crazy group! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinb Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 I'm now interested to find out what your no.1 coaster of the trip was as Nemesis is 3rd. -Martyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 My final ride at Alton Towers was Air. To be honest when I first rode it the first day I didn't think it was anything special. But after riding about 6 times during the ERT, I became a fan! I loved Air! I love Air! Big Mike is ready to fly! Air made you feel like you were flying! I'm ready to fly in the Air! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 So again Alton Towers was a blast! I could of easily spent a couple days there! I will miss that lounge singer in the ALton Towers Hotel! Next up: Drayton Manyor, coming soon! --Eric J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 I'm now interested to find out what your no.1 coaster of the trip was as Nemesis is 3rd. -Martyn It is so hard to narrow it down to a #1 coaster for me. After riding 57 in 10 days, almost all were great! By the end of my TR I should be able to narrow it down to my top 5 coasters! --Eric J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niiicolaaah Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Aww, I wish we would have gone into the castle. Oh well, that'll be for next time!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnage Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Nice TR so far Eric. Brings back alot of memories. Looking forward to meeting up for future theme park adventures. I'm slowly catching up in real life. Hopefully soon I'll be able to start going through all of my pics,etc. But in the meantime I'm enjoying everyone else's TR's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomizzle For Rizzle Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Sweet pics Eric. The castle was great and I am glad we got to go inside...even tho we killed getting to Nemesis in 10 mins from the castle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 27, 2006 Author Share Posted June 27, 2006 Day 4: Drayton Manor It seemed a lot of people didn't like Drayton Manor. I think there are three reasons for this: #1 We didn't get to have any ERT and the park didn't give us any special perks. #2 It rained that day (thankfully this was the only day of rain on the entire Uk portion of the trip. #3 We had been to Alton Towers the day before, and for a lot of people, Alton was their favorite park. I think we spent the right amount of time at Drayton. I could appreciate that at one time they spent the money on theming the rides but didn't continue the maintanence of the rides. An example would be on the Disney ripoff Pirates Adventure, a lot of the figures were missing limbs! The poor woman that was opening and closing the window shutters on her face was missing half of her face! I did enjoy the reversing flume, and the madhouse attraction, The Haunting. Now I present Drayton Manor in all it's glory! --Eric J I actually really enjoyed Maelstorm. Like most of the flats on this trip, they were new to me! We don't really have any type of cool flats in Florida. Storm Force was a very cool reverser flume. Ted, Paul and I got drenched! Cool water sign. Shockwave has got to be my least favorite stand-up. I still have a headache! Little do Chuck, Jodi and Dave know what's in store for them on Shockwave. The lift/loop was cool but kind of painful! The restraints were really different. Gforce was a unique ride! Day 4, our 5th park! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 More Drayton Manor Pics: Good-bye Merlin and Drayton Manor! But it wasn't that great either. It wasn't that bad. Excalbur: A Dragons Tale was a boat ride. They had a ok shoot out ride called like the photo says: Wild West Shoot Out. Another madhouse ride, tHe Haunting was very well themed. These rides sure screw with your head! Yep, I'm in the Drayton jail! Apocalpse was a very cool tower ride. B.O.T.B.C. members getting ready for Apocalpse. The ride had many scenes almost exactly like Disney's Pirates except Drayton's was more ghetto! Pirates was very themed. Paul, Ted and Catrina at The Pirates Adventure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 Coming soon: Blackpool and Southport! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParkTrips Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 Hey Eric, your TR has been awesome to read. Perhaps thats because you haven't made fun of me like everyone else Glad you had a great time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 ^Thanks Joe, I was sorry you couldn't go. But maybe I will see you on one of the trips next year. --Eric J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 Day 5: Pleasureland Southport I enjoyed Pleasureland for it's old seaside amusement park feel. It reminded me of a few places growing up in New England. The ERT in the funhouse was awesome! The 3 coasters we did go on were fun except King Solomon's Mine. That wooden mouse scared the crap out me!! Along with the wooden wild mouse at Blackpool the next day, these coasters almost made me give up riding coasters! I kid you not, I had too much airtime on these rides! I flew up a foot off the seat! During every turn I really thought my fat a@# was going to make the car fly off the track! Thankfully a half hour after the ride my heart stopped pounding in my head and I was able to enjoy the rest of my time at Pleasureland Southport! --Eric J. I loved our ERT in the Funhouse! Everyone was doing tricks in the barrel. The Social Mixer was like a really early version of a Gravitron. The Social Mixer was fun. Unlike a lot of people, I was lucky, I came off the wheel with few bruises! Everyone on the tour got a lot closer on the wheel! I have only seen these type of funhouse wheels on theme park/ rollercoaster history specials. I have never been in a funhouse like this before! I love the historical signs. In Florida, we really don't have any historic rides. First up was the Funhouse, which was fun!! Already for our hour of ERT in the funhouse and an hour on 2 of the coasters! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 More Pleasureland Southport Pics: It's historical, big woop, this was a one time ride for me! I'm thinking 4 things: #1 I don't want to die, #2 Am I to fat for this ride?, #3 Please stay on the track! #4 Please don't let me crap myself! As are Jeff and Lou! Elissa and Dan are about to experience the ride of death! King Solomon's Mines was really old! Before going on King Solomon's Mines of Death! The Cyclone: A classic! I think all the TPRers enjoyed our ERT on The Cyclone. I loved this ride! The view of the coastline was awesome! The Cyclone was very smooth, considering how old it was. The lift was kind of not straight! Next up was the historic Cyclone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 More Pleasureland Southport Pics: Jim, Tim and Tommy are ready for the Space Shot. Chuck chilling out with his peeps at the campfire. Got to get the kiddie credit! Chuck survived another scary ride! Oh the terror! Had fun going on the dark rides with my dark ride posse': Chuck & Andrew. The Lost Dinosaurs of the Sahara was way more high-tech than Dinosaur at Disney's Animal Kingdom! Or any of the Dinosaurs at IOA! Southport had lots of cool old walk trough and dark rides like the Haunted Inn. Chuck and I were terrified! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
live2tell75 Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 More Pleasureland Southport Pics: Why is everyone asleep? We have only done 6 parks in 5 days! And we're only half way through the trip! I thought Pleasureland Southport was a fun day, especially the Funhouse! No Traumatizer for us today. If you looked up during the day you would see many TPRers in the sky like Bob and Greg. Ryan and Kristie pounding it on the Sky Ride. Chuck on the ski-lift style sky ride. I guess we would have known the ride became covered if we had watched the ride before going on! I think Rich and Larry agreed with us that it was smelly, hot and kind of gross! Little did Andrew and I know that we were going to be covered by the caterpillar! Looks like a normal flat. I think Chuck, Andrew, Peter and I thought it was going to be a regular flat ride. The Caterpillar has got to be one of the oldest rides I have ever been on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hicko Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 Everytime I see pictures of the funhouse at Southport it always makes me sad because it makes me think of the Funhouse in Blackpool. Basically for anybody that doesn't know Valhalla is built on the site of the legendary funhouse that burned down in 1991. Blackpools funhouse was bigger and better in everyway. Sadly there arn't many pictures on the net of it. Very sorely missed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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