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TR: ZACH AND EMILY'S FIRST TRIP TO KENNYWOOD ***PAGE 5***


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I created this thread to post some current and dated TR's, some of which are over a year old that my lazy A$$ hasn't posted yet. Ironically, considering my title, the first TR is from a day before I made this thread. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy.

 

***LAST UPDATE 05/19/18 PAGE 3***

 

SF Great America "Last Call Fall Festival" 11/14/18 PAGE 1

Busch Gardens Williamsburg August, 2017: PAGE 2

Cedar Point "Coaster Campout" 05/19/18: PAGE 3

Edited by prozach626
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As mentioned in the SFGam thread, we took a trip to the park on Saturday, 11/4.

 

I was excited about our visit, since SFGam was hosting a "Last Call Fall" brew and food tasting event. I've been reading TR's for years of other parks hosting these food and beer events and they always look like a blast. I was excited that one of these events was in reach and our schedules were clear.

 

With the forecast not looking so good a couple days out, and the mixed responses of the park either being slammed or dead, due to the weather, we decided to make the call and try our best to enjoy our 8 HOUR DAY. When Saturday morning came, we gave our lift off the thumbs up, even despite other warning signs, such as having one of my 'I can't FFFFFFing sleep episodes' leaving me with a couple hours of sleep and having a pretty noticeable bruise on my face from a little casual ice hockey the prior day... The final warning sign came when we both drenched ourselves with our Starbucks (#treatyourselfday) we picked up in Springfield. By drench, I mean coffee soaked in my crotch through my jeans and my base layer long johns I decided to wear. Emily managed to soak her left leg in the same minute. There's no excuse possible, except that it's a bitch being human. WTF is wrong with us??? Luckily a rest stop appeared and I was able to use one of my only spare tee shirts to clean myself when I changed in the back of the car. FML

 

We got to the park about a half hour prior to opening and the weather plain sucked. It was around 40 degrees with a slow rain/mist. That special form of precipitation that hits you from all angles and sticks to everything. After waiting 15 minutes in this miserable sh** in the security switch backs, we were allowed into the park. We snagged a couple walk-on rides on Joker (first S&S free spin), right off the bat. Man, this thing was fun and we were totally surprised. It makes me a little nervous, which I like.

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After that, we grabbed a front seat ride on Goliath. This thing is still great, but Raging Bull still holds favor in this park. Haters will hate...

 

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It still looks great, though.

 

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The gloomy weather made Goliath looks great.

 

I won't bore you with every ride we took, but we but the weather warmed up, the spitting cold rain stopped, and we were rewarded with walk-on waits throughout the park, which is something I'd never experienced at SFGam. We walked around, took our time, and snapped a few pictures in anticipation of having the park to ourselves for a full eight hour visit.

 

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X-Flight wouldn't open for the day, despite seeing it do a few test runs. It's a fun ride and I put it in the category of riding it once per trip.

 

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The more I visit this park the more I appreciate it. Everything is really packed into SFGam, but the atmosphere isn't claustrophobic.

 

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We 'had' planned on doing this sometime throughout the day. (foreshadowing)

 

At 130 we noticed that the Fall Festival in the Yukon area not only looked pretty skimpy, but there were almost no employees. We asked an employee when the festival would start. She was nice, but hesitant. She told us that everything would probably start in a half hour and she apologized saying this was their first year with the event. She made a big deal about some employees setting up a tent to enhance the experience... which ended up being a 12x12 tent with no chairs, some soaked tables (as everything was soaked), and a few pumpkins on a hay bail... uh...

 

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And here was the table, along with the taps behind it which never opened up. I'll just sit here (stand) and drink my imaginary beer.

 

Eventually the festival began and we purchased a booklet for $30 dollars plus tax containing 15 credits. We also got some Over 21 wrist bands, which was nice to bypass the awkward carding issues. We did some quick third grade math to realize that every credit was 2 dollars. Most everything broke even with the actual price point, except samples which were 1 credit of $3... so basically we saved a dollar on samples. Cool, except the samples were about a quarter of a beer can and a 'full' beer was 5 credits, which looked like about a 10 ounce pour. Rapeage. Within about three minutes, including a couple samples and a couple beers, we were left with 3 credits. Lol. Oh well. We'd agreed to try a couple more within an hour or so and switch to JB's. We relaxed and walked around the park, deciding to head to our first rides of the day on Raging Bull and Whizzer.

 

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You can get a pretty good point of view of the vibe in the background. As far as the festival goes, there were a few stations here and there in the Yukon and Southwest area. Some of the offerings were Buffalo Mac and Cheese, Fried Mac and Cheese, BBQ Sliders, Jalapeno Poppers, a Brauwurst that looked really good, one hot spiced wine sampling, and maybe 20-30 different beer selections. The trip wouldn't have been worth it alone at all. Maybe the dreary day killed the vibe, but I think the festival could use some work. As far as the Lumberjack show goes... were we expecting some real SDC type wood carving or something, but when it was a bunch of bearded kids dancing around with plastic axes while one dude sang "You're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man you're a man," we left ASAP. I don't do thespian shows, let alone this one. Of note, the aforementioned singing redundancy was not an exaggeration.

 

It was around 230 when we approached Whizzer and we heard the announcement. "Ladies and Gentlemen, due to inclimate weather the park will be closing at 4pm today." WTF? Wait... this shit happens? It was probably six-seven degrees warming and everything was drying up. The sky was getting brighter and the wind had come to a stand still. It took us five hours to get here and the park will only be open for four hours despite being a destination park and holding a special event. I don't even remember hearing a "Sorry for the inconvenience" in any announcement for the remainder of our stay.

 

We made our way to the Southwestern area of the Fall Festival and looked at the beer options. Seeing the 10 ounce pours and with time ticking, I decided to abandon the wimpy pours for the big guns. We headed inside JB'S and got ourselves a couple big daddy Sam Adams Octoberfests and used our last three credits outside for 5 jalapeno poppers covered in beer cheese sauce.

 

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Excuse the dirt on my face - aka no shave vacation week. This is my face of disbelief about the park closing, combined with indifference about the Fall Festival. This truly was supposed to be our 'last call' in a big park this season. Maybe they just wanted us to enjoy the 'last call' even sooner than expected. fml

 

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When we walked under Demon earlier, some girl in her 20's looked down on us and sarcastically said "Have a Six Flags Day..." That tone seemed completely relevant at this point.

 

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That's kind of more like usual.

 

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After our attitude adjustment, consisting of drinking our large beers as fast as possible, I determined we had to make the most of our hour left at the park. We snagged a front seat and a back seat ride on the bull to kick off our final hour. I remember saying on the break run of another awesome ride, "The enthusiasts who can't appreciate this ride are a bunch of FFFFFing pansies." To which Emily replied without hesitation, "You're a pansy." Burn. Seriously though, that first drop kicks ass and the rest of the ride is filled with floater air and good times.

 

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Have a Six Flags Day! (Why the Hell is this thing still on???)

 

We decided to have one more beer to wrap up the day. Usually we don't drink that quickly, but we had to drink away our sorrows and try to have a good time.

 

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Then, we took a wrong turn and got lost somewhere. We found American Eagle somewhere back there. Only recently have we began to appreciate older wooden coasters. American Eagle is a far cry from Screaming Eagle, but it's still a pretty fun ride. Sadly, it was our last ride of the day. I wanted something where Emily and I could have fun, laugh, and bump into each other a bit.

 

We took the scenic way out and my beers were catching up with me.

 

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Speaking of catching up, a few more tourist shots were in order.

 

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Me- "Did I get pretty close?" Emily laughing - "Close? You were part of the FFFFing show!"

 

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I took one last picture of our somber exit. Yes, we made the best of our short day, but it could have been so much better.

 

Our final count:

Jokes x2

Goliath x2

Whizzer x1

Raging Bull x3

American Eagle x2

Vertical Velocity x1

Justice League x1

Beer Man x3

Closing early announcement with no apologies x5

Six Flags screwing its customers x1

 

We safely made our way back to our Hyatt in Deerfield and checked in. Maybe we looked a little bummed out with feelings of confusion, as the staff member checking us in asked us if we wanted two free drink coupons. Does a cat have an ass? Does a bear shit in the woods? Does Six Flags care more about pinching pennies to make a profit trumping guest experience? The obvious answer is YES! We showed our appreciation, went upstairs to change, feeling weird from not being tired out as usual, and made our way to the bar. We had a couple drinks over a couple hours of talking and we made our way to our next adventure and half the reason why we came.

 

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Tada!

 

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I don't know what I did to deserve the circumstances of the day, but we were seated next to a massive group of obnoxious kids who were loud as FFFFFF! I don't do kids and I don't care for loud. Luckily, we ordered a cold pitcher to again try to use alcohol to pull out of this tail spin. As fate would have it, within 20 minutes the kids were gone! Eventually, we were treated with our award.

 

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Sorry William... I couldn't resist. I mean who gets pizza at Wrigley, anyway???

 

Also, no, I'm not dying, that the aforementioned hockey bruise. I know Chicago style has mixed reviews. I've had Gino's and Malnati's and I love them both. I'm not too particular when it comes to pizza, except that I don't do large corporate chains. If I'm having a cheat meal, I'm not wasting my time on that crap. This was our second visit to Malnati's this year. We got the classic, which comes with the pie being layered with sausage, then we added pepperoni. The crust was crunchy with hints of butter, the Sausage was tender and delicious, the pepperoni and was very flavorful, the sauce tasted strongly of delicious wine, and there was enough cheese to plug me up for a week. Pictures don't do it justice, this tasted fantastic to me.

 

The day was filled with mixed feelings, but we did make the best of it. I can't help but to be a little bummed out and a little upset at the level of customer service. I understand a park closing early for inclimate weather. However, SFGam used a little dreary weather as an excuse to close in order to not lose too much money. Yes, I understand this is a business, but we really felt like we got sh*t on.The weather did nothing but improve throughout the day. All coasters except for X-Flight ran throughout the entire day. The weather did nothing but progressively get better throughout the day. By the time we left, it was in the low 50's and completely dry with no wind. It stayed this way throughout the evening.

 

Either way, we're suckers, so we'll be back next year or so. I've really gained a lot of appreciation for SFSTL in the past year or so and I had started to really gain some appreciation for the chain, but this was definitely a step back. I'm still grateful for our four hours at the park, despite the unfortunate set of circumstances.

 

For more on the disaster as it unfolded:

http://themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=51125&p=1829341#p1829341

 

(Sorry for any typos. I did this in a hurry and my lazy A$$ did not proof read.)

Edited by prozach626
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Good report and pics! "Fiddler's Fling: the fastest ride every built!" I often tell my friends. Really stinks to come all that way and have them shut down on you. I took some friends to the park a few years ago on a slightly rainy June day, and they did the same thing. On the way home, the skies were bright and sunny...

 

One time they were shutting down and I politely asked a manager "why is the park closing down?" He angrily snapped at me "for the safety of our employees!" Bad answer, on more than one account. If the numbers aren't right for the day, they close up shop. A friend from here drove down to SFOG to have the same thing happen. Shame shame. And shame if no one told you guys to ride the front car on American Eagle (RED), preferably seats 1 or 3. That beats the pants of Screamin' Eagle

Edited by JT325
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LMAO... Oh man, I'm dying over here reading this trip report. Someone might be giving Bill a bit of a run for his money with these TRs.

 

You had the same reaction as I did on my first S&S Free Spin ride. It makes me a bit nervous going over the top of the lift and it's a lot of fun on the way back down. Glad you enjoyed it! Otherwise, sorry to see you had a bit of a disappointing end to your season, but it's great to see you make the most of it!

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Good report, if not exactly a great trip. This event sounds like a good way to extend the season if SF is not wanting to commit to Christmas at Great America just yet. Sounds like it was intended to be set up like Brews and BBQ and they just Six Flagged it all up.

 

Shame you couldn't get a pizza at Malnati's. At least they had beer in appropriately sized vessels.

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Great report! Lou Malnati's is amazing so I'm glad you could enjoy that pizza as well as a relatively crowdless day before they closed.

 

How much notice did they give you before closing? I hate when parks close early, but I at least ask they give at least an hour's notice so I can get my last rides in the major rides. Lake Compounce gave 5 minutes notice they were closing and SFNE agave 15 minutes notice they were closing on two of my more recent visits. Compare that to Great Adventure which gave an hour notice, which allowed me to get my last rides on El Toro and Nitro without having to sprint across the park.

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Love this report! Lots of laughing on my part. Sounds like in spite of having Six Flags day you made the most of it.

 

Also, are you eating that pizza with a knife and fork?

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SIX FLAGS DAY.

 

Funny, I kind of ran into the same sort of weather during my summer trip there (less the cool temps), but since the park was absolutely slammed, it stayed open until its scheduled closing time. STRANGE HOW THAT HAPPENS ISN'T IT.

 

Thanks for taking one for the team and checking it out. Good reporting. I definitely want to get back to that park at some point in the future because it's one of the prettier SF parks and the lineup is great, but... yeah. Between the crowds, the questionable weather policy, and the fact that it's basically a 14 hour drive not even factoring in the Chicagoland traffic, I'm in no hurry to make a repeat trip.

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Great report! Lou Malnati's is amazing so I'm glad you could enjoy that pizza as well as a relatively crowdless day before they closed.

 

I completely agree. Another great SFGAm TR. Almost nothing is better than Lou's. I'm lucky enough to live near one so every week I order from there. Although I prefer the thin crest over the deep dish.

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Definitely a Six Flags Day, which is really discouraging to me since I've regained a lot of appreciation for the brand.

 

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'll dig up some pictures and post some past TR's within a week or so.

 

I took some friends to the park a few years ago on a slightly rainy June day, and they did the same thing. On the way home, the skies were bright and sunny...

It's such a bummer. I didn't even know this was a thing, except for really terrible weather outlooks.

 

LMAO... Oh man, I'm dying over here reading this trip report. Someone might be giving Bill a bit of a run for his money with these TRs.

Haha. That's a pretty tall order.

 

Shame you couldn't get a pizza at Malnati's. At least they had beer in appropriately sized vessels.

lol. I see what you did there!

 

How much notice did they give you before closing? I hate when parks close early, but I at least ask they give at least an hour's notice so I can get my last rides in the major rides. Lake Compounce gave 5 minutes notice they were closing and SFNE agave 15 minutes notice they were closing on two of my more recent visits. Compare that to Great Adventure which gave an hour notice, which allowed me to get my last rides on El Toro and Nitro without having to sprint across the park.

 

They gave a little under an hour and a half notice. I could have even tolerated a 6pm closing, but 4 seemed ridiculous compared to our 5 hour drive there/hotel/5 hour drive home.

 

I did. I ate like $35 worth of sh*t at Wrigley.

You should know better as a well traveled individual! Nah, I get why Chicago style probably isn't everyone's cup of tea. I think you should give it another try when you return, though. Maybe somewhere different like Gino's East. You would probably loathe St. Louis style pizza. It's cracker crust cut into squares. The pizza is very thin made exclusively with Provel cheese, which has a really unique flavor. Imos is the staple here, but there are better alternatives throughout the city. I look forward to trying some good New York style pizza, someday.

 

Also, are you eating that pizza with a knife and fork?

Guilty, at least when it was hot. Although I'm kind of a wuss and have been known to do that with regular pizza when it's hot.

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How much notice did they give you before closing? I hate when parks close early, but I at least ask they give at least an hour's notice so I can get my last rides in the major rides. Lake Compounce gave 5 minutes notice they were closing and SFNE agave 15 minutes notice they were closing on two of my more recent visits. Compare that to Great Adventure which gave an hour notice, which allowed me to get my last rides on El Toro and Nitro without having to sprint across the park.

 

They gave a little under an hour and a half notice. I could have even tolerated a 6pm closing, but 4 seemed ridiculous compared to our 5 hour drive there/hotel/5 hour drive home.

 

I showed up at 3:15. The parking attendants were still fully willing to charge the $20-25 for anyone without a season pass and the park was listed to be open until 9. Then at 3:45 they made the closing at 4 announcement. Thankfully I only had a 2 hour drive and it was my local park, but still frustrating.

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Appreciate the report- I'm planning on hitting one or two of these extended-season days, but will be going in with the expectation of getting my day halved. If luck goes my way and it isn't, that will be a nice bonus. Looking forward to the rest of your procrastinated musings.

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Thanks for all of the replies, guys. I think I'll go with my BGW report next, although Sadly I lost some really good pictures when my phone bit the dust a couple weeks ago. That's what I get for not backing the pictures up on my laptop.

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Thanks for all of the replies, guys. I think I'll go with my BGW report next, although Sadly I lost some really good pictures when my phone bit the dust a couple weeks ago. That's what I get for not backing the pictures up on my laptop.

You should grab the Google Photos app; it offers free unlimited photo storage and automatically backs up your stuff for you.

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  • 1 month later...

So here's my TR for BGW. We took the trip in July. If you think I procrastinated on this one, wait until I break out my 2016 TR's to Scarowinds, BGT, and SWO. (If ever)

***PART 1***

 

We took advantage of my sister getting married in the outer banks by making a day trip to one of our favorite parks, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, on the way. We purchased our tickets in advance and we were really excited. I mean f*** it... our one week stay in a beach house with 15 members of our family already sounded like torture, combined with: "Are you God Damn kidding me? We're paying that much to stay at a crowded beach house, NOT on the beach, when we've stayed at luxury resorts and condos for half the price. So why not spend what ended up being a few drops in the bucket compared to the BF we were getting on our beach house. (BF is up to your interpretation although some people would consider it a good thing ((For the love of God no social arguments It's just a joke I'm OK with whatever works for you.)(((I have a vulgar sense of humor)))((((This is the very least inappropriate joke I could make since Andrew ruined the one Trump joke I tried to make)(((((Screw you Andrew)))))((((((Already guaranteed this won't make the front page, now))))))(((((((More parenthesis, because I'm a combination of an idiot and a dork, with a little douche mixed in.)))))))))))).

 

Well alright then. Our Corolla "vacation" was Saturday to Saturday, so we set out on a Friday and hopped an optimistic flight with American Airlines to DC, where we were Scheduled to have a two hour layover, before flying into Norfolk and driving an hour to our Holiday Inn Express. Our flight to DC was quick with no problems. We lucked out and had the opportunity to pick up a semi-healthy dinner of Greek Salad and Grilled Chicken, which was pretty damned good for an Airport Restaurant.

 

After the confusing as hell trip to our gate, we finally figured out that we had to go downstairs to the basement, before we could wait for a bus, to take us to our 3 across seater plane, before taking off. Our flight was scheduled to leave around 10 and get in around 11. Easy peasy? Negative.

 

It's 1030 at night, we're stranded in DC with our airplane placed on indefinite standby for maintenance, and it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow. Not a good sign of things to come for our solo day at the park tomorrow, before heading to the outer banks for a week. Fml

Note the word 'indefinite.' How's that for giving everyone an optimistic outlook?

(Just like one of those cheap reenactments on some bullshit documentary movies where actual quotes are used and my character would probably be played By Nicholas Cage or one of the worst actors repeatedly used on HBO. Or, maybe Oprah, I don't know.)

 

I'm pretty apathetic when it comes to death, so whatever, but I'd rather die on the way home if that's convenient with American Airlines. An hour later of yawning and occasional people watching later, in between looking up from one of those books where you admit boredom defeat 20% into it and upload a new book on your Kindle, we were advised that our plane was under "Maintenance review." Sweet. Take that C02 generator out for a spin and if it doesn't need another set of jumper cables, a shady patch job on the tires, or a really shitty JB weld job on the engine, we'll be good to go. We accepted our fate of immediate sedatives at our late hotel arrival, followed with 6 hours of sleep and a liter of coffee. Instead, 45 minutes later, we were in a mad dash to the booking counter after our flight was CANCELLED.

 

Aaaaaannnnnddd... my flight was cancelled...

 

Emily and I held it together. We scrambled and we worked through the problem. Unlike a lot of couples, we rarely fight and we work great as a team. (She's one of the few things in my life I've done right.) She contacted the airlines while we waited in line and I contacted Thrifty to see what I could do with our rental car. I realized we were only a few hours from Norfolk, so I figured if we could rearrange our original rental destination and cruise the rest of the way there we would be golden. I spoke to a lively overseas lady who I could barely understand over the loud crowd bitching and her strong accent. I'm sure she had just as much trouble understanding me with the background noise and my super classy Midwest redneck voice. Eventually we changed the starting point of our original reasonable priced $300 per week rental car to leave from DC. No problem she says. Happy to help. That will be $1200 dollars. No. FFFF you, lady.

 

So, it was on to the next plan and Emily had our flight rescheduled to fly NORTH to Minnesota before the sun even thought about waking up, have an hour layover, and fly back to Norfolk, with no chance in hell of sitting next to each other. Our arrival time was 10am, which would put us in the park around noon, more than likely. Screw it, we'll make do.

 

American put us up at the Hyatt Regency, which was a plus, since we are used to staying with Hyatt and it was within our comfort zone. First stop? The medicine shop to relieve our stress from the chaos and rapidly evolving situation. We received a medicinal dose of a double gin and tonic each, and an even stronger rectal dose (non discriminatory joke) of a $40 tab. LOL. Worth it. We fell to sleep quickly into our comfortable California king an we were tempted to smash the alarm clock when it activated at something like 3:50 AM, because 4:00 is too much of a round number...

 

Woke up after 3 hours of sleep to hit connecting flight to Norfolk. Boarded airport shuttle. Got an email that our connection flight to get us to Norfolk at 1pm is cancelled and we were rescheduled for a 10pm arrival in Norfolk tonight. F*** American Airlines! We're getting a rental car and driving a few hours to Norfolk, passing BGW, to pick up our OTHER rental car. We then drove an hour back in our shitty dirty Nissan Versa, back to BGW.

 

Trying as hard as we can to make lemonade here, but these are some sour lemons.

 

Seriously, FFFF you American Airlines. Donald Trump lied, because apparently you're still not great. (DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, ANDREW!) After calmly reeling Emily in from a short public outburst on the tram back to the airport, we were determined to complete our trek to BGW! For those wondering what the outburst looked like, please see a fine example in a different context:

 

 

Luckily, Hurst (spelling?) rental car company opened at 5am and we ordered a car via our phones for $100 bucks, once I picked up the pieces of my emotional wife. I enjoyed it, snce usually it's the other way around. When we got to the airport before 5, we went to pick up our suitcases and were advised that the baggage office didn't open until 7 or 8, which would put our ETA at the park well over 2 or 3. Luckily, Jesus Christ himself was the one who advised us of this. After watching the optimism drain from our faces, he asked us what our bags looked like and went into the baggage claim area. After he was gone for 10 minutes, I figured we were doomed and he wouldn't be able to locate our bags, but we were shocked when he wheeled out our familiar looking luggage. I urged him to take $20 for our graciousness, but he calmly smiled and stated he wasn't going to accept that. We thanked him repeatedly and moved to the shuttle area, only to realize that the shuttles to the rental car company were not yet running. We had decided to "just go with" whatever came out way and follow the path we were led. Luckily, after waiting for ten minutes the only Taxi in the entire city drove by, but he didn't see us waving. All hope lost again, I saw his familiar face drive by about five minutes later. I wasn't going to miss that son of a bitch again, so I practically strung my underwear out of my bag to form SOS and waved frantically. A happy cabbie loaded our luggage and drove us less than five minutes to the rental car hub and I insisted he take my $20. Money fixes everything? We responded to the rental counter where the nicest lady ever listened to our story and provided us with our car keys and listened to our sob story. She handed over a basket of chocolates and said, "Take a chocolate, it's the least I can do." Normally we watch what we eat despite park binges, but "Just go with it."

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Fueled by our Nissan Juke (what a surprisingly fun and versatile vehicle to drive), and Starbucks tripple shot Macchiatos, we drove through our Nation's Capital and on to Norfolk to pick up our crappy Nissan Versa, at our $300 cost. Then t was on to Williamsburg, where we stopped for lunch at another mostly healthy Zoe's Kitchen (please come to the midwest), and got to the park a hair before noon. First on the agenda? Taking a 30 minute nap in the car. We were surprisingly refreshed.

 

Ripped off from the movie Apolo 13, "The Mission to BGW was what we referred to as a successful failure..." except we said FFFFF it, and decided to land on the moon even if it was going to kill us...

 

This will be more of an overall park review, since the day was somewhat foggy due to a mixture of no sleep, long stressful travels, and a mixture of delicious stimulants (coffee) and downers (beer). Some people prefer meth and heroin, but I'll never be that hardcore.

 

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Did you expect anything else? Savor it, because there aren't many pictures, let alone pointing pictures. #exhausted#enjoythisanddon'tspendthewholedaydoccumenting

 

The crowds didn't seem bad at all and we hit up Tempesto first. Me? I enjoyed it more than last time. Emily? Buzz Killington was even less impressed than last time. How can you not appreciate a ride that has the Mr. Freeze roar?

 

We also hit Apollo, which I although I enjoyed our first visit, very much underwhelmed me. We had one ride total in the front and one in the back, that day. We really enjoyed both of them, especially in the front. I'm back on the wagon.. or train!

 

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The refreshing atmosphere of this place is so great it softened our moods and we were able to really relax.

 

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If you know my TR'S, you know Emily makes train selfies mandatory. BGW'S train is great and we love trains in general. Er... well most of them...

 

We tried our first ride on Invader, which ended up being our longest wait, which was 30 minutes. I enjoyed the ride, as I do 90% of rides, but it was probably my least favorite GCI. I wouldn't wait more than a few minutes to ride it. We also hit up Verbolen, which is still a blast.

 

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We also did this! I am in love with this ride and I praise BGW for keeping it and letting me experience it. The interaction with Invader makes it even better, because you can drunkenly wave and yell "HEEEEEEEY!!!" at the people on the lift hill with your immature self, while your wife slaps you on the arm and says ZAAyyyyycckk stoohhhp with her pouty face. All of that turns to laughter when she inserts more beer.

 

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Then, this happened. It poured for a solid hour almost completely emptying out the park.

 

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What better time to start? Our people watching was incredible and if I can get my old phone up and running later (aka not being lazy), I'll upload some phenomenal people watching pictures. We were stranded in the middle of the most awkward/geeky family ever, who decided to bring what appeared to be a few month old infant to the park (WTF). There were also several times where they were so unaware of personal space that they literally surrounded Emily and I while they had their conversations about their plans for the remainder of the day like we could have been family... This is not an exaggeration. There were several times where I just sipped my beer and gave my attention to each one of them as they spoke, as if I were part of the group. I can't even explain the tone in which they all spoke, but if men in black were real, they would have been in full disguise. At one point, a few members of the group who I estimated to be in their late teens/early 20's broke off from the group and stood in the rain for 20 minutes taking instagramfacebooksnapchat pictures. The guy and one of the gals were taking kissy/lovey pictures in the pouring rain and I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if they were brother and sister.

#thisiswhywenolongerdoTPRtours. http://themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=74325

I totally get it, Rob.

 

At one point, I forced a very uncomfortable Emily to take some pictures of me pointing in the center of the family conversation, which did not turn out well, since she was not cool with it. (party pooper). Finally the mother of the 2 hour old child said "Uh.. Dad... I think you're crowding those people."

 

After that, the side show stopped and the weather turned to a mostly very light mist, partial very light rains, with periods of beautiful mid 60 degree dryness. We were soaked, we were buzzed, and we were having a blast.

 

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Griffin is our favorite dive coaster by far, but we got so caught up in the day we were only to enjoy one awesome ride or two. Walk-On.

 

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More evidence of an empty park. Nessy? Walk on and as good as I remembered. Pure laughter and fun. Not to be taken too seriously. (Use this as a guideline is you find yourself over revving your nerdyness).

 

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When in Rome. There may have been 30-40 people in Festhause and it was awesomely quiet.

 

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But we never dodged a chance to stop and admire the few animal enclosures.

 

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And we never Dodged what I ultimately decided was my favorite ride in the park. Walk-On.

 

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Where's Waldo? We also had to dodge a few small puddles. Good thing we can swim pretty well.

 

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The rest of the daytime was filled with no crowds, a little fog, and walk on rides. We snagged split an OMFG amazing soft pretzel with the cream cheese icing and continued to visit beer man until we had to leave a few hours of sobering up.

 

At twilight we took our first ever ride on Mach Tower when it was the only short period of steady rain. Ragged ass looking, tired, and having a blast, Emily asked me WTF I was thinking, but ended up laughing her ass off with me, as the rain seemed to fall at the same pace we did.

 

The rain slowed and we casually walked around and enjoyed walk-on rides and almost completely empty trains wherever.

 

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Our day was finished out gloriously. We took a walk on ride on Invadr and decided it still wasn't for us. After that, we rode LeScoot 3-4 times without getting off. On our last lap we asked the ride operator, "Have we been the only people riding?" "Yep. Wanna go again?" "Yep!" Yelling LeScoot! as loud as possible and screaming WoooooooooooooH! on the way down probably got us some funny stares from the three people left in the park.

 

Our second to last ride in the park was FFFFing epic! We decided to hop on Alpengeist one last time and took a walk-on seat in the front, with maybe 5-6 of us remaining guests on the entire train. The ride was absolutely hauling as small drops of mist hit our face. The peaks of every element were warm and painted with dim shines of light, followed by dark dives into the foggy cool valleys. The smell of summer and plantlife rejoicing from the abundant summer rain were incredible, interrupted only by the clean smell of chlorine as we zero-g rolled over Le Scoot. This was one of the most memorable rides of the entire summer and we enjoyed the ever living hell out of it.

 

One would think this would have closed out our perfect night as the operating hours were coming to an end, but I wanted to treat Emily to one last ride on her favorite coaster in the park, Verbolten. We smiled and laughed as made our way to the front of the park and boarded the tram, just as the back half of the storm erupted in lightning and downpour. Luckily, we were sobered up by then. We sprinted toward our car parked a quarter mile away in the back parking lot, which was quite literally the only car in that parking lot, laughing when we got to our crappy Versa. We drove back to our Holiday Inn, jumped in a much needed shower, and fell into a 10 hour coma.

 

Feeling amazingly refreshed, we woke up and hit the tread mills, cleaned up, and got back on the road for our couple hour drive to Corolla NC. NOPE!

 

***TO BE CONTINUED***

Edited by prozach626
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***SMALL CULTURE REPORT***

This part of the outer banks if fkkd. We waited in four hours of traffic on our two lane road to travel 5 miles. 5 MILES!!! At one point, we traveled .4 miles in AN HOUR.

 

Eventually we made it to our beach house. The week was way more enjoyable than expected. Corolla was a nice beach community. We're big fans of the Florida Gulf, specifically Santa Rosa Island, at Pensacola Beach, but the views were beautiful, as were the beaches.

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We rode bikes and rode probably a couple hours a day. We rode to the gym every day, which was filled with bros. We rode to the beach. We rode when we went out to eat, even dressed up nice with teenager style pandora playing in my pocket, playing accoustic relaxing hipster music.

 

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We called our bikes 'the hogs.'W"ant to go to dinner? Yeah, let's take the hogs." Motorcycle reference, despite us not being motorcycle people.

 

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Dinner with

Hogs.

 

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We also did a lot of reading and lounging by the pool.

 

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At one point the family went to a 4x4 beach where we rented Jeeps. We did a lot of lounging on the beach with a short trip through Jeep trails, where we were on a wild pony reserve. They actually walked right up to the Jeep, but I don't have any pictures, due to the loss of my old laptop.

 

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Corolla had a great laid back atmosphere with a lot of hipster brew places and coffee shops. We fit right in.

 

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Near the back half of the trip my big sister married her awesome husband and the ceremony was really nice and calm on the sound side of the outer banks.

 

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Our trip was packed full of memories and we really had a great time, despite the obstacles and apprehension of spending week with my family, which turned out really pleasant. Emily made a great point when I asked her which trip/park she liked the most this year. Her answer was instantly Busch Gardens Williamsburg. She explained that although we had a great time at other parks and during other trips, we would remember this trip for years to come due to the circumstances. Not once did we argue or get mad at each other. We just pushed through and made it work, which is what marriage/partnership is all about.

 

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We don't spend much on Christmas gifts, but this year she surprised me with this picture which is now hanging on our memory wall right up there with pictures of our cherished moments such as our Sedona, AZ wedding. I am thankful for the obstacles we faced on this trip and would not have had it any other way.

 

Please forgive any typos. I'm not taking the time to proof read, since my computer suddenly without warning ran out of battery halfway through and I had a moment of panic before the history thankfully pulled up my lost TR. Enjoy.

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I got called out in a trip report! Woohoo!

 

Seriously, what a fun trip. Congratulations to your sister! Busch Gardens looks so awesome, and I do hope to get there one of these days.

 

Y'all are okay people. We probably differ politically, but whatever. You're Yuengling fans, so you can't be that bad.

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Lol. I only call out my favorite people. I am friends with a lot of people who I know differ from my opinion politically. At the same time, I would be surprised if anyone could guess my voting history and I’ve certainly made voting mistakes in the past. I vote for the candidate, not on the party. Aside from casual jokes, I’ve been raised never to have serious discussions with family and friends in reference to religion, politics, or money.

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Did you expect anything else? Savor it, because there aren't many pictures, let alone pointing pictures. #exhausted#enjoythisanddon'tspendthewholedaydoccumenting

 

I don't know how I'll *ever* trust you again.

 

you're pointing in a bunch of these pictures!

 

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