violakat03

Terpy - They no longer do staggered opening, as of 2012. All coasters open at the same time now. I suggest hitting TN Tornado or Mystery Mine first, as they will be deserted. Everyone goes to either Thunderhead or Eagle. Also, the last hour of the day everything clears out. While Mystery Mine *seems* like it has the slowest line, it actually isn't that far off from the rest. On an average day of single-mode dispatch, we'd put through about 700 an hour, dual dispatch would bump us to 800. Eagle puts through an average of 800, Tornado about 900, and Thunderhead about 800. So, in dual mode it's exactly on-par with the rest of the coasters, and it will be run in dual mode whenever the wait exceeds 30 minutes.

Opening Day 2009 was the most memorable for me. Not just because of Diamondback but because that was the first time I'd ever gotten to really hang out with a lot of KICers. I won the drawing that Rex and The Beast (.com) held for a seat with Rex during the first rider auction which was a HUGE surprise to me. I seriously never win anything and when I got that email I went running through my house yelling "I GET TO RIDE Diamondback!!" My mom thought I was crazy. (Rex and I in the back seat. In the front seat is Jackson, aka Beast1979) I ended up staying the night before in the Super 8 across the highway with Angie (gigacoaster2k) who had become a really good friend over the winter. We're still incredibly close. She was the first good friend I made as a member of this site. Opening day, I also met my now-best friend Stephanie (kittenpooh), my now-husband Nick (dare-to-fly) and many, many, many others who have become really good friends. I can't remember all the usernames of the people in this photo, but they include KICers Makayla (ogrmac), Angie, (gigacoaster2k), Dustin (kiruler102), Derrick (PhantomTheater), Danielle, Jesse and Shawn Opening day 2011 was another memorable one if only because everything went wrong. I missed The Racer evac because Nick and I went to lunch at exactly the wrong time, but I got about a million texts about it. At one point, I finally gave up on trying to ride anything because like Chris (chugh43) said, everything went down when we tried to ride it! I took Stephanie's kids and spent several hours in Nick U with them while everyone else tried to ride Diamondback and Beast. The best part of opening day 2011 though was when we took Stephanie's daughter Mindy on her very first "grown up" ride - she'd hit the magical 48" mark over the winter and started her entrance into the enthusiast world with a night ride on The Beast!! Pretty much everyone in this pic met because of KIC. Mindy is on the far right after her "new favorite ride!" Opening day 2012 was memorable because .... oh yeah, I didn't go to opening day 2012 because some KICer decided to get married that day.

Thanks for all the comments guys! I'm going to try and get SeaWorld up here in a little bit to finish it out. By the way Terpy - Dainan says no, he's from New York.

If you are going to be there two days or more, buy a season pass. It's cheaper than 2 days worth of tickets. You can save on parking by turning down Teaster Ln and parking at Patriot Park for free, then riding one of the Pigeon Forge trolleys in. It costs 50 cents per person each way, so if it's a really big group of you it won't be worth it, but 4 people or less would be cheaper. DO NOT miss a ride on the train. It's one of few remaining coal-fired steam engines in operation at an amusement park. It will take you on a 5-mile round trip up into the mountains and back, where you also get some nice views of the coasters. Dollywood is very proud of their train engine Cinderella (and their second engine Klondike Katie) and love to show her off. You can hear her steam whistle echo throughout downtown Pigeon Forge. The food is amazing. There is no bad, or even mediocre place to eat. However there are some shining stars. Ms. Lillian's Chicken House is an all-you-can-eat buffet with fried chicken as the centerpiece, but plenty of other great home-cooked options. You also get to experience the entertainment that is Ms. Lillian, the chicken lady, a fantastic character that roams the dining room singing songs and generally finding every way she can to torture unsuspecting victims in the funniest way possible. I've seen her dress DaveStroem up as a chicken to dance with her, ask to borrow someone's cell phone mid-conversation and then sing a chicken song to the person on the other end, stalk people to the fountain drink machine, and everyone's favorite, provide chicken blessings to those in need! If you like to have a good laugh, this is not something you want to miss. Another good place is Aunt Granny's, a full-service buffet full of home-cooked favorites such as turkey, fried chicken, pulled ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc. Hickory House is a "quick service" establishment that serves BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and turkey legs. Lumber Jack's Pizza is the home of the 12-lb pizza, which they serve in 1-lb slices. They are also the home of the best chicken tenders in the park. Other great places include Backstage Restaurant, Market Square, Red's Diner, Dogs n Taters, Victoria's Pizza ... the list just goes on! Definitely plan to eat in the park. It's not as expensive as KI, but is a bit higher than you'd find in the 'outside world.' If you enjoy shows, Dollywood produces some amazing ones. These aren't the type of shows you will see in a chain park. They won the "best shows" Golden Ticket for a reason - beating out even Disney for the honor. I recommend Dreamland Drive-In and Wings of America. The Christmas shows I think are phenomenal, so if you get a chance to go back during Christmas you could spend an entire day just watching shows. Oh, and of course, I recommend riding every coaster. Don't skip over Blazing Fury - just remember to appreciate it for it's 1970's cheesiness. And come say hi to me at Wild Eagle!

What, the ones at Columbus Zoo? They are VERY snappable, as long as they're running in high speed! Keep in mind though, it has two speed settings. They turn the speed down if the wind picks up at all to keep the tubs from colliding, but if the winds are calm and they're running on high, they snap like crazy. And no, they don't get mad at you. So few people that ride them know how to snap them that the operators don't really know what it is, and as long as you aren't trying to climb out of your tub, they'll let you do pretty much whatever you want.

Terpy - Why yes, he is. I wonder where you would know him from.

How did it end up even managing a two?!!

Claremont Inn on Irlo Bronson Hwy. Avoid it like the plague! It might actually have the plague. When we got up on the second day, Nick went to the front desk to ask for towels, because remember that they took our only one and didn't replace it. The front desk said they were out. So he found a housekeeper. She said she was out. So we said, forget it, we'll improvise. I used a pillowcase to towel off my hair and then spent forever with the hairdryer (probably would have been just as fast to air dry it). Nick went a step further by taking the sheets off the bed to use as a towel!! One thing we found entertaining was they couldn't seem to leave us towels, but I kidnapped the bottle of lotion daily and it was replaced with a new one every single day. Ok, moving right along! Day two of our trip was Saturday, February 23 which happened to be my husband's 28th birthday. We'd made plans in advance with our friend Lon to go to Busch Gardens Tampa for the day. After seeing the picture above, for some reason Photobucket is absolutely destroying the color balance in my photos. So they all look more washed out and blue overtoned than they should. No idea what's up with that. We stopped outside the park in Tampa for lunch, and it was there that we discovered that the Tampa area was under a water boil advisory. Because of this, area restaurants were not serving fountain drinks and instead handed out cans, which was kind of interesting. Thanks to our platinum passes, we enjoyed the complimentary preferred parking and headed to meet Lon inside the park. We started off with Gwazi, because, well, why not? It's pretty much the closest to the front of the park so it seemed like a natural starting point. Unfortunately everyone else apparently thought the same thing. We shrugged at the posted 20 minute wait and got in line anyway. For those that haven't heard, Gwazi is also no longer a dueling coaster as the Tiger side has been closed off until further notice. Lion is running with one train from each side. The 20 minutes was a lie. After waiting an hour, we finally got into the back two rows and went for a spin. There's really nothing remarkable about this coaster to me. It feels like a tamed-down poorly maintained version of Kentucky Rumbler. It doesn't have as much airtime as most GCIs do, and since it's not exactly the smoothest wooden coaster I've ever ridden, I'm sort of glad it's running Millennium Flyers instead of PTCs. It's sad that Busch is, in my opinion, wasting what could be a fantastic ride. After wasting an hour of our lives we'll never get back, we decided to head to SheiKra. It had been closed during our January visit to receive a new coat of paint. Now the trains were gliding along nice shiny red rails. Having ridden Griffon before, I sort of knew what to expect. I really enjoyed Griffon but had heard mixed reviews as to which people thought was better. We waited an extra train to get front row (it was only a 15 minute wait overall), and by luck got the seats on the end. I really like hanging off the edge of the track, and this was Nick's first dive coaster so I figured he'd like it too. SheiKra has more intense interactions with it's environment than I think Griffon does. I'm a big fan of headchoppers and "near miss" elements, so for me, I found SheiKra to be the more exciting ride. I especially loved the headchopper as it passed under the MCBR. Something I found interesting was during the train ride, the conductor told us the story behind SheiKra's name. It's named after a species of bird that dives straight at the ground in order to catch it's prey. Very fitting for a dive coaster! Of course, SheiKra is known for it's splashdown. Unlike Diamondback, you cannot stick your arm in it and get wet. However, it does have a "splash zone" where it soaks the midway, and anyone standing in it, as the train passes. I took some "kamikaze" shots where I ran into the splash zone, shot for as long as I could and still get out safely, and ran for my life to keep my camera dry. After SheiKra, we stopped for a snack (Nick and Lon's definition of a snack was dramatically different than mine) at the Zambia Steakhouse. They have a huge variety of offerings, from BBQ ribs to turkey wraps, salads, fresh fruit, bread pudding, turkey legs, and so many more I could never name them all. I got a giant cup of fresh strawberries, the guys both got full meals. At this point we discovered how Busch Gardens was handling the water boil advisory - instead of fountain drinks, they had a huge stock of 20 oz bottles and were pouring them into cups. Nick and I purchased a souvenir cup, and throughout the day when we purchased 99 cent refills we were just handed a 20 oz of our drink of choice. This really impressed me, as I'm sure many parks would just tell you that you had to buy a bottle instead. We made sure to stop by guest services on our way out to leave a compliment for the foods team! Kumba was down for annual maintenance, which was very disappointing for us. I was blown away by the intensity of it in January and it climbed very high into my ranks. It is absolutely relentless, with no reduction in forces between elements. Like we noticed pretty much every coaster at Busch Gardens does, it goes on FOREVER. I swear, Busch coasters are twice the length of coasters at most parks. It's like they never end. Since Kumba was down and we really wanted to get to Cheetah Hunt, we decided to ride the Saranghetti Express, their train ride. It picked us up near SheiKra, carried us through the Saranghetti plains animal viewing area, and conveniently dropped us off on the other side of the park near Cheetah Hunt. On the way, we passed another coaster closed for annual maintenance, Scorpion, which is a Schwarzkopf looper. This is a great, fun little ride, though it was only running one train and therefore had nearly an hour wait on our January trip. I've heard it pretty much always runs one train, even though they own two, and therefore always has a long line. Which is sad, because it's a fun ride, and it's a Schwarzkopf which are starting to become rare, but it's not one I'd wait a long time for. You can get some fanastic animal views if you continue on around, between Cheetah Hunt and the third station near Kumba. The giraffes crack me up. There is an upcharge tour where you can actually ride in the back of an all-terrain vehicle and feed the giraffes, so they LOVE people. We got in line for Cheetah Hunt, which was posted at 35 minutes. Unlike Gwazi, this one was accurate for the most part. I believe we ended up waiting around 40 minutes. I really enjoy Cheetah Hunt so I didn't mind the wait as much. Plus it was fun to have lots of talk time with Lon, whom we don't get to see very often since he pretty much lives at work (remember he's a Disney Imagineer). We finally boarded the back row (where else?) of the train and off we went. Cheetah Hunt is a fun little Intamin that ticks all my boxes. It's got multiple launch sections, lots of fun whippy turns, an incredibly unexpected heartline roll (the only inversion) and nice surroundings. It also has a cool back story, if you pay attention to the signs in the queue. The "tree" section that most people are familiar with as the most commonly photographed area of the ride, is a nice slow, lazy stroll through the structure after the first launch. This represents the cheetah laying around in a tree while watching for prey. Suddenly, he sees something on the horizon, jumps from the tree and he's off! There is a section where you do this cool left-right-left-right swerve while flying low across moving water, a near miss with a waterfall, tunnels, launches ... yeah, it's a pretty great ride! Plus, they have two male cheetahs in a habitat right across from the entrance. I spent quite a bit of time watching the big kitties. After Cheetah Hunt, we were feeling pretty much done with the park, because we had plans for dinner and another park afterwards in Orlando, so we headed back to Montu to grab our last rides of the evening. Strangely, even though all the other rides had a moderate wait, Montu was a complete walk-on. Montu was a bit of a strange experience to me. It had been built up by many other enthusiasts so I was expecting it to really blow away a lot of other rides. In January, I was certainly anticipointed. I think that worked out to my advantage on our second visit, because I was expected it to be a let down after Dragon Challenge the day before. Instead I had the reaction of "okay, that was a LOT better than I remember it being!" Hey, it was a walk-on, so of course we rode it twice. After that, it was time to grab a bag of cotton candy and head back to Orlando, where we were meeting our friend Dainan for dinner. We waved goodbye to the cheetahs and cheetah hunt, along with Lon who had to go back to work, stopped to giggle at the alligators, and away we went. We met Dainan at Logan's Roadhouse for dinner and then piled in his car to head off to our next destination. Yes, Dainan is a Castmember also. He's in attractions, and he wanted to show us his "home" in the Magic Kingdom. We parked at the Polynesian and rode the monorail over, then used our hour and a half of remaining park time before close to basically run around and grab all the credits, which was mildly complicated when Space Mountain was down. We started at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, previous my only Disney credit. We picked up Rock n Roller Coaster in January thanks to Lon in a similar few-hours-at-night trip to Hollywood Studios. Nick and I had ridden BTMRR at Disneyland, but I have to say, WDW's is much better! Especially riding it with a Castmember who knows the ride inside and out and was able to tell us all kinds of cool things about the scenes, blocks, and how to get the best experience out of the ride. Plus, it was a walk-on. How handy. After the Mountain, we walked through the new Fantasyland (unfortunately we were rushing too much for me to grab any pictures of the castle from Beauty and The Beast, which is my favorite Disney movie) on our way to Goofy's Barnstormer, a Vekoma roller skater. Like IoA's kiddie coaster, Barnstormer runs two trains and they had insane fast dispatches. We waited 5 minutes to ride and it was, as most Disney rides are, significantly more fun than it's similar counterparts. Finally, we made it to the last credits of the park: Space Mountain, sides A & B. It was down when we got there, but the Castmember at greeter informed us it would be back up within 20 minutes, so we decided to wait for it. While standing in line, a family that was leaving the park offered us their fast passes that they weren't going to be able to use. We migrated over to the fast pass lane and were able to get on about 10 minutes after it reopened. By this time we were really pushing it on time, so we weren't sure we were going to be able to get both sides. We were directed to B side (the signage indicates it is "Omega") and loaded into the back car. We had ridden Space Mountain at Disneyland, and it landed in both of our top ten steel rankings. Dainan had warned us that WDW's was quite a bit different and that we might not like it as much. Quite to the contrary, we both liked it more! WDW's has more airtime, more laterals, and more of that "going to fly off the track" feeling. Thanks to some Disney magic, we were able to get right on to A-side ("Alpha") after our ride, thus completing our credit quest. We also got to see an evac of the People Mover, which was kind of entertaining considering it goes right through Space Mountain. We took our time heading out, since I was snapping a million and a half pictures of Cinderella's castle. A Castmember offered to take a picture of the three of us together, which was definitely very handy! We stayed on Main Street USA long enough that we got to see the "kiss goodnight" show on the castle. My last trip to the Magic Kingdom, I was 6 years old, and I don't remember the castle being used for displays, so that was really cool for me. I took a million more pictures of the castle (I won't bore you all with them, I basically just took pictures of it lit up in every single color) and then it was time to say farewell to our brief Disney magic. After all, we had another day of coasters and a long ride home ready for the next day!!

Every ride you mentioned is sadly gone! I never got to ride any of them either. I usually shoot with a Nikon D7000, though I occasionally carry my Nikon D40 into the parks because it's lighter weight and is a less expensive camera if something happens to it. I'm a photography student and I've used a couple of my park photos (such as one you'll see in my next section, which is a sunset photo of Cheetah Hunt) in my portfolio.

I'm surprised by the fact you fit in Intamins but not B&Ms, as usually it's the other way around. That just goes to show that proportions have more to do with actual weight or size. Parks do have an influence on their rides but only to a certain extent, and that is usually a very minimal amount when it comes to restraints or rider requirements. For example, Dollywood was able to convince B&M to lower the height requirement to 50" on Wild Eagle, making it, as far as I know, the only B&M with a height restriction of less than 54" but they would not be able to lower the requirement without manufacturer permission. All requirements that involve physical features (including height, body control and amputations) are set by the manufacturer and the park, by law, must follow them. Six Flags Intamin hypercoasters have additional side and ankle restraints over other similar Intamin trains due to an accident on a Six Flags ride. Cedar Fair and some Six Flags parks add seatbelts to Arrow OTSRs while others, like Dollywood, do not. Parks are also subject to state regulations, which are often in addition to manufacturer requirements. In Ohio, all rides above a certain intensity (based on IAAPA ratings) require a double restraint mechanism. That can be either a double-locking restraint, as in Diamondback, or by the addition of a seatbelt. When choosing the use of a seatbelt, the manufacturer recommends the length. Parks can shorten them (I believe) but not lengthen them. I know Sea Dragon's seatbelts were shortened because they were long enough that they could have gotten wrapped around the wheels but I don't know for sure if that was a park decision or PTC decision.

I wanted to toss this picture in here too. On our first trip, we entered WWoHP from the opposite direction than we did the second time, entering by the castle rather than Dragon Challenge, which gave us this nice photo opportunity. Makes me miss my pink hair. I had the last few inches of my hair dyed bright pink over the off-season but since I'm back at work it's all brown again. Moving on! To get to Universal Studios from Islands of Adventure, you must travel most of the length of the CityWalk, which includes things like this gigantic Hard Rock Cafe. At the entrance to Universal Studios is their gigantic globe, which I think is just kinda cool. I also think their entrance plaza looks pretty cool. One of the first things you see upon entering is the model of Gru's house from Despicable Me. This is the entrance point for Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem. This is a simulator ride where you sit in pods and watch a video on a giant screen. The premise of the ride is that Gru has invented a way to "minionize" humans. The girls are trying to give Gru a gift for his birthday and of course the minions try to help, so all sorts of chaos ensues. It's a fun ride, but we didn't wait for it this time around. I adore the minions, so I love how much minion theming there is in this park. We continued down the midway, heading for our favorite ride at Universal: Revenge of the Mummy. This is an indoor Premier coaster, and like everything else at Universal is, it's highly themed. There's a short backwards section where you drop onto a turntable, then turn 180° to a launched lift hill, which has airtime as you crest the top. There's lots of headchoppers, unexpected turns and great effects. The only thing I don't like is how long the queue is!!! We used several of our Quick Queue passes to ride this multiple times even though the wait was very short (usually just a few trains), as the Quick Queue line was a very short walk. One thing you notice about Universal is how long all of the queue lines are. You walk forever and ever, and pass miles of empty switchbacks. What's frightening to think about is that I'm sure during Halloween Horror Nights, those switchbacks are all full, which with how many each ride has I'm betting adds up to several hours worth of wait time. I'd love to experience HHN but certainly not on a Saturday. I get the feeling it would make the crowd on a Halloween Haunt Saturday at Kings Island look like child's play. After Revenge of the Mummy several times, we stopped at the Classic Monster Cafe for food since Rockit was down. As it was last time, the food was great and really not all that expensive. By this time, Rockit was running again, so we put my camera in a locker and used our Quick Queue which got us past the 45 minute wait that had formed. Rockit is a very cool coaster, but it's not one I'd wait an extremely long time for. The big 'draw' for this ride is the on-board audio. There is a small touch screen built into the restraint where you can select which song you want to listen to during the ride from a list broken down by category, and speakers are built into each seat. On my first ride in January, I chose Evanescence "Bring Me to Life" which is one of my favorite songs. This time I decided to try for one of the "bonus" songs. They're accessed through a hidden menu and you have to know the code number of the song you want to play. I'd looked up the number ahead of time for Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain." That made for an incredibly cool ride experience!! I always find it funny when you're walking through the section of the park just past Twister:Ride it Out (which Rockit's track goes through part of the building for), you enter a very nice, scenic area designed to look like a downtown city street. And then there's this oddball coaster track through the middle of it. In my opinion, every city street should have a random coaster in the middle of it. The signature element of the ride is the giant non-inverting loop. The track twists as it approaches the crest and again as it descends so that the car never actually goes upside down. It's a very different experience, and as someone who loves lateral air time, that was my favorite element. Another cool feature is the lights on the cars. They are set to go along with the elements of the track so they will either rotate through colors, flash, or stay a solid color at certain points of the ride. It makes it a very wicked cool ride to watch at night. Next time I want to bring my tripod and get some night shots of it, as shooting hand-held I wasn't able to get quite the effect I was hoping for. We also went to the back of the park to get some of the dark rides. I really enjoy Men in Black: Alien Attack, as Men in Black is one of my favorite movies. My mom and I have watched it together countless times, including the sequel, and I have a cat named Orion that looks like the one in the first movie. This is a target shooter game, however the cars are on spinning axis (you'll hit random points in the ride and do 360° spins which are FUN!) and it is a dual track where you can always see the car you are "competing" with. You start off going through the scene from the movie where Agent J is supposed to be shooting the cardboard aliens and instead shoots the cardboard cut-out of a little girl carrying physics books. Then Zed interrupts to inform you that a bug has crashed into the surface and we need to go take care of it and you move into a scene of a city street with aliens popping out of everywhere. The aliens themselves don't have targets on them, but I discovered if you can get the eyeballs (there's a laser "sight" so you can see what you're hitting), it will rack up tons of points. There's also a point where Zed says the bugs have infiltrated the agency and to take them out. At this point you turn to face the other car and each time you hit the target above the car, it sends them into a spin and gives you 16,000 points. Then as you reach the end of the ride, you hear Agent K say "remember the red button I told you not to push? Push the little red button." Most of my car didn't figure out that if you hit the red button on the stand for your gun, you get 100,000 bonus points, but I did! I ended up the ride with something like 935,000 points. It was pretty absurd. Everyone else in the car was in the 100,000-200,000 range. After Men in Black: Alien Attack, we headed to the Simpsons Ride, which is a motion simulator ride where each pod of 6 people has an individual room and screen. My brother is a HUGE Simpsons fan, so I took a ton of photos of the area and some of the merchandise in the gift shop on my phone and sent them to him. I have to admit, I was kind of disappointed the Kwik-E-Mart didn't have a Squishee machine. After the Simpsons, we went back to Revenge of the Mummy for a few more rides and then as we were ready to head out of the park, we got caught up by this huge character parade. It has some pretty awesome floats, plus lots of dancing characters. Despicable Me and the minions started it off. They had people dressed as minions dancing. On our last visit, I got a picture with one of them. And of course, Gru and the girls. Followed by my favorite Spongebob character, Patrick. And some roller skating fish. Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? And everyone's favorite grumpy octopus, Squidward. They also had characters from Hop and Dora the Explorer. Anyone who saw me taking their picture made a funny face at me or blew kisses to me, but I don't want to fill this entire post just with pictures from the parade. Even though it was the best amusement parade I've seen outside of Disney's Electrical parade. After getting clear of the parade, we finally headed out of Universal Studios and made our way back to Islands of Adventure to grab some rides on the Incredible Hulk. This unique B&M sit-down (not floorless) coaster features a launched lift hill through a tunnel, at the top of which you go through a zero-g roll above the midway, then drop down across the lagoon and up into a cobra roll followed by a giant loop. This thing seems to have inversion after inversion and keeps very solid pacing throughout. It features a splashdown effect before the cobra roll, mist effects and tunnels. We finished off our evening by riding the Hungarian Horntail side of Dragon Challenge as many times as we could before close (I think we got four rides in a row by getting off and going through the child swap door) and then finally heading out. Some friends of ours that are Castmembers at Walt Disney World had asked us to join them for dinner at Downtown Disney where we ended up parking over a mile away and didn't know about the ferry boats! Either way, our tired feet carried us to dinner, where we had a lot of fun, then one of the CMs told us about the boats to get back to our cars and we finally headed back to our hotel. Our friend Lon, who is an Imagineer and character artist, wanted to visit Busch Gardens with us the next day and we made the necessary arrangements. Instead of ending this on a "happily ever after" note, when we got back to our hotel, where they hadn't moved us to a room with a bigger bed, we discovered that they'd taken our dirty towel and not left us any new ones! It just kept getting better and better! Once again, to be continued in next post, which will be tomorrow because it's almost 5:00 am and I need to go to bed!!

It's been a very long time since I've posted a trip report here. In fact, it's been a long time since I've done a trip report at all. I usually post some or most of my pictures on Facebook (our California honeymoon still only has one day posted) but don't really do much more than that. I decided you guys could probably use some entertainment, and I'm bored, so .. here you are. I'll give you a fair warning that some of the pictures in this trip report are from our January trip, as I took more photos then than I did on this trip. Also, some of them are watermarked as they are more artistic than just documentary, so they've been uploaded to deviantart or my photography Facebook page. My husband Nick (dare-to-fly) and I decided that we were going to use our last weekend before our season starts back (we both work at Dollywood) to celebrate his birthday. He's never gotten to ride a coaster on his birthday before, being that it's in February, so this sounded like an awesome idea. During our trip to Orlando in January, we had purchased Universal Studios annual passes, and already had Busch/SeaWorld passes so all we had to pay for was our hotel, gas and food. Because it was Orlando's Food & Wine festival, as well as the weekend of the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon, it was hard to find a hotel. A coworker of mine helped us find one on Orbitz for $45 a night, so we decided to just go with it as most places were charging $120+ or completely booked full. We headed out Thursday evening after Nick was done teaching for the long drive to Orlando. From our location in east Tennessee, Google Maps says it is 10 1/2 hours. We have yet to make it in less than 12 because we always manage to end up in a traffic mess somewhere. We finally pulled into our hotel around 5:00 am on Friday, to find that instead of the king-sized bed we'd reserved, we had a twin bed. That was the start of the hotel adventure. After sleeping for a few hours, showering (we had ONE towel in the room) and getting dressed for the day, we headed to Universal Studios. When I discovered that preferred parking was only $5 more (making it the same price as normal Six Flags parking at $20), I went ahead and sprung for it, taking us several miles (or at least it seemed) closer to the entrance of the park. A few short moving-walkway rides later, we were in the Universal CityWalk area. It was not looking promising as far as crowd size, because CityWalk was packed. We headed straight for Islands of Adventure, because on our trip in January Dragon Challenge had been closed and we wanted our new credits. Yeah, it was busy. In January, the entrance had been deserted. We were the only ones at the turnstiles. This time around, we had to wait in a line of 5-6 people at turnstiles, with every single one of them open. After seeing this, we were prepared for the worst. When we got back to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, it was even more insane. I'm not even kidding that it was wall-to-wall people. I was glad I'd taken plenty of photos of Hogsmeade on our last trip because there was no way to get a clear shot of any of the buildings. For those who haven't been there, WWoHP really is amazing. All of the features from the movies and books are there. The only thing I don't like is that the forced perspective, to me, is really obvious and so it doesn't quite give you that "just stepped into the movie" feeling that I got from Cars Land at Disney's California Adventure. Inside Honeydukes, you can purchase all of the candy from the stories, including Chocolate Frogs, Exploding Snaps and, of course, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. The Hogwarts Express is also present. On our first trip there, it wasn't really that exciting, but this trip they had a person in a conductor outfit that you could take photos with in front of the engine and it was producing steam in just the way a real steam engine would, which was very cool. I didn't take any photos of the steam because it was simply too crowded. Just past the Hogwarts Express is the entrance to Dragon Challenge, formerly known as Dueling Dragons. Unfortunately, I never got to ride this marvel when it actually dueled, but having ridden it in non-dueling mode I can tell it would have been amazing. After dropping my camera in a locker, we headed to the entrance, expecting to see a huge number for the wait time. Instead, we saw "20 minutes." Wait, what? How is it only 20 minutes with all these people here? Apparently, they were all just gawking instead of riding. The wait time was legitimately 20 minutes, and after making it through the highly-themed queue, we chose to go left at the split and ride the Chinese Fireball track (formerly just called Fire). It was certainly a good coaster. I've never met a B&M invert that wasn't. However, it was just an invert to me, really. You could feel the missing duel elements. After riding Chinese Fireball, we got back in line (which was now down to 15 minutes) and this time turned right towards Hungarian Horntail (formerly Ice). I had a much different reaction to this side as it was a much faster paced, more intense ride than the other side. Again, you could really 'feel' the missing duel elements, but overall it was still a great invert. Probably my third favorite (behind Alpengeist and Afterburn). We had a little altercation with the locker attendent at one point around this time, after which I went to guest services to complain about his outright rudeness. Guest services showed they know how to run things, took our complaint very seriously, offered us a refund of the locker price and a fistful of "Quick Queue" passes ... including one valid for Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, which does not accept normal Quick Queue, so that was pretty amazing. Anyway, just wanted to throw that in there. We also went up to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. This is a dark ride inside the model of Hogwarts Castle. You enter in front of the castle, and get to see the long covered walkway that makes several appearances in the movie (it's always been one of my favorite locations). Once inside the castle, you have three options. Go straight to go through the stand-by line, turn left to take the single rider line (we chose this option) or go to the right to take the castle tour without riding. This is the only way you can get pictures of the inside of the castle if you have a camera that won't fit in your pocket. We took the castle tour to see what we were missing by not waiting in line and so I could carry my large camera inside. It is VERY dim inside, and using your flash washes out many of the special effects, so getting pictures inside is difficult. By taking the castle tour, you get to take a sort of hidden stairway which is filled with moving portraits. Neither the stand-by or single rider lines use this stairway, so that was pretty cool to find out. After this stairway, you enter Dumbledore's observatory. Then proceed through the Gryffindor common room. The ride works using a robotic arm and incredibly well-done theming which makes you feel like you are flying on a broomstick. You go through scenes involving Aragog and the Forbidden Forest, the Whomping Willow, and dementors and using domed video screens, you fly through the Quidditch pitch, around Hogwarts Castle, through the Forbidden Forest and several other scenes. It's very well done and is currently my favorite dark ride. However, it is VERY disorienting and includes some scenes that would be very scary for younger children. It has a fairly low height requirement, and I know at that age I would have been terrified. Across from Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is Flight of the Hippogriff, a highly-themed Vekoma junior coaster which, even though it's a "kiddie coaster" is actually a pretty good ride ... and runs two trains!! We did not ride it on this trip as we rode it in January and didn't feel the desire to wait through a 20 minute line for it. In between the queues for Flight of the Hippogriff and Dragon Challenge, is a recreation of Hagrid's hut. You can hear him talking to Fang inside. Other neat fatures of WWoHP are a bathroom with Moaning Myrtle (which, according to my friend Curtis, is incredibly disturbing when you get motion sick on Forbidden Journey and then go into that bathroom to recover), Ollivander's Wand Shop (which always has a huge line to get in to), and various live entertainment such as a singing group of "students" along with their toads and owls and the random parade of students from Beauxbattons and Durmstrang. 4 And of course, no trip to Hogsmead is complete without a few drinks. In the Three Broomsticks, you can buy both pumpkin juice (which Nick chose) or butterbeer (which I chose). The pumpkin juice is interesting but I'm not a big pumpkin fan. The butterbeer is like a root beer made with butterscotch and is rather thick but delicious. Three Broomsticks itself, of course, looks like it came straight from the movie set. After finishing up in the Harry Potter area, we headed off for the other park, Universal Studios. On our trip in January, we'd spend most of our time in Islands of Adventure and I felt like we hadn't given Studios enough time. This trip, we did things the other way around. Continued in next post. I've lost a long trip report before by not splitting it up into several posts when something froze up, so a moderator can feel free to combine them once I'm done.

I asked in training last year and no one was able to say "yes, this spot right here is larger." Each seat is slightly different, as I explained in my first post in this thread. I can tell you exactly which seat is the biggest on Mystery Mine because we all got really bored one day and decided to figure it out. The answer is back row, seat 3 (counting from the left) of car 5. The smallest is front row, seat 4 of car 4. The difference between those two seats is a matter of probably 5 or 6 inches. I'm sure at some point we'll end up doing the same on Wild Eagle, which will be very useful for the many guests who ask. As far as those who are claiming the "parks" should redesign the restraints: Parks do not design restraints. Manufacturers do. Most manufacturers are not based in the United States, nor do they have an real necessity to design restraints to fit obese or morbidly obese - and considering at my current size I'm at the top end of obese and fit in everything, most people who don't fit do fall into the morbidly obese category. B&M, Intamin and Premier are all based in Europe. Ride operators and parks do not get to arbitrarily decide what's too big and what's too small. That is all done through very extensive testing processes to make sure that every rider that can securely fasten the restraint is 100% safe. The engineering behind restraints just isn't as simple as people seem to think it is. If restraints are designed specifically to fit larger riders, they will not properly fit on smaller riders. They also must consider any way in which you could possibly slide out of the restraint. Think about an OTSR - if you pull it down and it rests on your belly but is several inches off your chest and shoulders, you can slide out to the side. That's not safe. This of course also depends on the forces of the ride. I can get out of a junior PTC train without unlocking the lap bar (yes, I've done it - I was tired of waiting for the ride op on Teddy Bear to come let me out), but there aren't strong enough forces on a junior wooden coaster to throw me from the ride vehicle. If I could wiggle out of Diamondback's restraint that easily, that would be a huge issue because it does have strong enough forces that I could be thrown from the train. Also don't forget that there are height restrictions on many rides for maximum height as well. For instance, Wild Eagle has a maximum height of 6'6" tall. This isn't because of the restraint but because of how close the trains come to nearby obstacles. 6'6" is the height that the manufacturer determined was a safe enough "cushion" that there was absolutely no physical way a rider could come in contact with a stationary object. Is it "fair" to tall people? No. Is it a fact of life? Yes. Just like individuals who will never grow above a certain height will never be able to ride some rides (ask DaveStroem's wife about this one), there are some people who will simply get too tall to ride some rides.

Yes, the boat ride line is at a T by the river. However there is no path along the river to the carousel. There is a boardwalk but it only goes to the rental pavilions which I believe are behind Asia Quest.The only way to get to the boat ride through public areas is via Australia and the Islands exhibits (past the gibbons and the komodo dragon). On the map posted above it shows empty space by the boardwalk, behind the carousel, but I'm pretty sure that's all admin buildings. Inncorrect there are no admin buildings there, it is a pretty open space, but if this exhibit is for just one year I cant see the Zoo really transforming the area too much, probably just the boat ride. Also when did you work thisride? you said the themeing was over a decade old, but this ride isnt even a decade old I'm pretty sure the boat ride has been there since before it was Australia and the Islands. I'm fairly certain it was there in my first visit in 2001. I worked there last year from early March to late June. I worked the boat ride most of the weekends in April and May as there were only a few of us trained on it, so even though it wasn't in my area I somehow ended up there all the time. I also worked on the train and carousel, though my home was Sea Dragon. I left the Zoo after I fell and broke my foot working the coaster.

You're pretty similar to where I used to be (I lost a significant amount of weight last year before my wedding) and I found Diamondback, Beast and Racer to be pretty snug but still rideable. Firehawk was uncomfortable on my chest (still is, the girls didn't really go anywhere) and Drop Tower required some finessing to get them in. Flight of Fear and BLSC were sometimes a struggle to get the belt hooked because it required twisting, which knocked the bar up too high, but ride ops will buckle it for you so it wasn't a very big deal. Diamondback has a test seat before the ride entrance that you can try, and you can also go up the exit of any ride and ask to try the seat before waiting in line. Be aware, however, that each seat on the train will be a little different, so if you can just barely get it in one seat that doesn't guarantee you will fit in every seat. They are mechanical and only have to be within tolerances, not exact specifications. I don't want to get all preachy, but after barely fitting into Millennium Force in 2011 and almost having to take my first walk of shame, I decided it was time to make some major changes. Three pants sizes gone and I fit in everything with room to spare. I even had slack in the seatbelt of Top Thrill Dragster for the first time ever. Definitely something to consider. I'd be more than willing to direct you to some resources to help you with lifestyle changes that made all the difference to me.

As an added incentive, parking is free! You just park in the public area for Mission Beach. We took a walk along the beach while we were there so we could say we'd stepped foot in the Pacific Ocean, but it was way too frigid for us to go in more than knee deep. By the way, I see in your signature you're planning to go to Orlando in Feb/March. Do you have your dates set? My husband (dare-to-fly) and I will be down there this weekend (the 22nd-24th).

Yes, the boat ride line is at a T by the river. However there is no path along the river to the carousel. There is a boardwalk but it only goes to the rental pavilions which I believe are behind Asia Quest.The only way to get to the boat ride through public areas is via Australia and the Islands exhibits (past the gibbons and the komodo dragon). On the map posted above it shows empty space by the boardwalk, behind the carousel, but I'm pretty sure that's all admin buildings.

We went in October and I would say absolutely don't miss it while you're there. It's got several fun flats but the Giant Dipper is a great classic with an absolutely amazing story. They have a nice little museum set up by it about the story, with pictures of it during it's entire life, including the SBNO years and the rebuild. While you're there, make sure you eat at one of the taco shops on Mission Blvd. We ate at Marcy's (it's the smaller one that's over shadowed by big flashy Roberto's on the corner) and it was seriously some of the best food I've ever had. Belmont's Giant Dipper was the first coaster of our honeymoon! Marcy's Taco Shop. Amazing!

The boat ride is actually pretty far off the beaten path from the rest of Australia. When I worked in rides there, they tended to just put you at the boat ride for multiple rotations because it was such a far walk from everything else. I didn't mind that, it was a fun ride to work. But the ride itself was pretty .... well, boring. There are many animal exhibits that aren't used anymore, and a lot of the theming was just run down and old because it hadn't been updated in probably a decade or more. I think it'll be pretty cool as a dino exhibit, and it's isolated location will make it easy to "close off" into a seperate section. The area between the komodo dragon exhibit and the boat ride is empty, and the only animal back there is the black swan, which can also be viewed from the other side of it's lake.

I lost a phone off Gemini at Cedar Point in 09. That was kind of embarrassing, especially as it was in a fastened cargo pocket. Lol. That pair of pants now has zippers on the pockets. People lose phones out of pockets pretty much constantly on some rides. Diamondback is one of them. Mystery Mine and Wild Eagle at Dollywood are also cell phone theives. We picked up an average of 2-5 from under Mystery Mine daily. We could always tell whether it came out of a pocket or out of a hand based on where in the ride they lost it. Under the loop: pocket. At the bottom of the first drop: hand. We weren't in a hurry to pick up the phones at the bottom of the first drop for that reason.

I believe Viking Fury now has a minimum regardless of whether with a chaperone or not. Top Thrill Dragster is another one where the height requirement was raised after it opened and kids who were able to ride it one year weren't able to the next.

You pointed out the phrasing that would make the argument that it's not "enforced" invalid. It says you must be able to, not that you must.

At Kings Island, yes. At Dollywood, no. It gets frustrating, especially when you see kids in those platform flip flops that are clearly adding 2 inches to their height to get them to the requirement and we can do nothing about it.

These guidelines are also set for the "what if" situations. For example, If there was a problem with The Beast and an evacuation is in order from one of the lift hills, one of the rules is that you have one hand on a hand-rail at all times... that's kind of hard to do with no hands. In this theory, a person who uses a wheelchair wouldn't be able to ride because they can't walk down the lift hill. However, there are alternate routes to evacuate a person with physical disabilities down from a lift (usually a stair chair). Usually the disability restrictions are for the ride experience rather than the potential for evacuation. As was pointed out, acccording to guidelines you are supposed to grasp the restraint. All rides I've ever seen have this guideline. You are supposed to grasp some variety of handle or bar while riding. The lack of ability to do so is what prohibits certain individuals from riding because they cannot grasp the handle or bar.

It's not as difficult as you think, really. Often times the kids know they're too short and the parents are the ones trying to get them on. I'm usually annoyed rather than feel bad, because it's rare that a parent doesn't know their kid is too short and they're trying to sneak them on anyway. Especially when they try little tricks like coaching them to stand on their toes, piling their hair on top of their head, etc. I've made kids take out headbands, hair clips, ponytails, all kinds of things that their parents used to add an inch to their height. Parents love to try and guilt you into letting their kids on. My favorite line ... "now you've made her cry." No ma'am, you made her cry when you brought her up here knowing full well she wasn't tall enough to ride.