DaveStroem

I will be up all night but I will try to give a snapshot of all 31 parks we went to this year. Disney World Simply the best. While not the largest collection of coasters, they do everything so well that I can overlook this. Kings Island This park feels like home. Through KIC I have made several new friends that make the park much more enjoyable. Cedar Point Coasters galore. Nuff said. Kings Dominion Fun Park that feels like it is missing a signature coaster. I was not overly impressed with Volcano or any of their coasters for that matter. Hopefully Timmy 305 will add that ride. Busch Gardens Williamsburg Another beautiful park with great food. The admission is a bit high but worth it. Their coaster collection while small seem to handle the crowds. Griffon while unique I felt it is over rated. Six Flags America Went into this park not expecting much and found a fun smaller park with a solid line up of coasters. Superman was full of air and Wild One delivered a great ride. Jokers Jinx was a blast that didn't stop on the MCBR like FoF. Kennywood I was not thrilled with this park, the staff seemed like they would rather be somewhere else. Phantom's Revenge has a weird jolt at the top of the 2nd hill that killed the ride for me. The rest of the coasters left me yawning. Waldameer Ravine Flyer II was a great coaster in a over grown carny park. The rest of the park seemed dirty and unkempt. We only did this park durning the evening so that might have had something to do with it's appearance. Darien Lake This former Six Flags park provided a fun day but other then Ride of Steel was lacking. Canada's Wonderland Huge park with Behemoth a ton of other coasters and one of the best collections of flat rides. Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Quirky park with only 1 major coaster that is now gone. I doubt that we will go back here anytime soon. Holiday World Beautiful park with friendly staff and a park attitude that makes you feel like a guest and not just a walking wallet. Six Flags Great America Busy park with some fun coasters. Raging bull was way over trimmed. Whizzer was a lot of fun for a family coaster. Indiana Beech Surprising park. The entrance from the south lot was breathtaking. Loved Cornball & Hoosier Hurricane. The real treat of this park is the Flying Crows and the circle swing that are both on platforms over the water. Steel Hawg was totally forgettable. One thing that I didn't like about the park is all the stairs to get to the coaster stations. Lakemont Park Small park with 3 coasters including Leap the Dips which is the oldest coaster out there. Knoebels Grove Funky park in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. Only 2 adult coaster for 2009 both are a lot of fun. Amazing collection of flats that I wish we had more time to ride. Hershey Park Big park with an interesting mix of coasters. Lightning Racer was one of our favorites of the year (and seemed to be the least loved by the general public) Farenheit didn't do it for me and Storm Runner felt like it was missing the 2nd half. Stricker's Grove Small park that was more fun because of the KIC group that we were there with. Six Flags Great Adventure Another huge park that is not well laid out IMO. This can be overlooked because it houses both El Toro & Nitro. Kingda Ka re-opened 3 days after our trip. Dorney Park Biggest let down of the summer. Talon was down with a broken lift chain and the rest of the coasters were lacking. Six Flags over Georgia Loved this park. Goliath & Mind Bender were great coasters and Monster Mansion was of Disney quality. Dollywood Expensive park with 1 great coaster (thunderhead). Again with tons of stairs to climb to get to the coaster stations. Columbus Zoo / Jungle Jack's Landing Finally got my first ride on the Jet in over 30 years. While the Zoo is world class, the amusement park is aimed at the kiddie crowd. Carowinds Nice park with some great coasters. The new Intimidator will make this park near perfect. If they added a GCI it would be there. Freestyle Music Park YAWN. There was not much to this park. None of the coasters produced any thrills. When the mine ride is more exciting then the B&M you know something is screwed up. Family Kingdom This was a cool little park with a great wood coaster (swamp fox) We only were here for 1 hour late on a Sunday night & only rode the Swamp Fox and the Ferris wheel but had a great time and loved all the lights. Six Flags St Louis A mid sized park with some sweet coasters. I got my 200 coaster credit of 2009 on Evel Knievel. Screaming Eagle impressed as well. Worlds of Fun Another mid sized park with one great woodie. Prowler really delivered the goods. Every second on it was exciting. This has been the best summer of my life. We spent a lot of time together as a family and made many new friends.

SOB TOM, this is why the settled for more then what the jury awarded. The park wants this case to go away & never come back. I personally don't understand why they would offer her anything more then what the jury awarded, but I don't know all the facts about the case. One thing I am pretty certain of, the attorney bills were probably more then the award.

What about a Vekoma SLC? I actually enjoy those coasters. Mind Eraser at SFNE was always fun and the head banging wasn't as bad. But the SLC at SFKK is horrible compared to the others I have been on. NO NO NO Please NO!!!

What I was trying to say is that I would want something that the other parks that are relatively close don't offer. That being said, I guess that some might consider Voyage & El Toro simular in that they are both wild air filled wooden coasters.

While I love Voyage and all the coasters mentioned from CP. They are close enough that they don't need duplicated at KI. A B&M invert makes since as I feel they have gone beyond gimmick (stand-up & flying) and are now a top draw at most parks that have one. Now for grabbing one ride from another park, that would have to be El Toro. But only with different trains that could accommodate larger folk.

I would put up old styled posters of the park from the 70s. Things like the dbl ferris wheel and other attractions that are gone.

I was thinking the same thing. Yes the gum was gone, but no new paint. I truly dislike the "tunnel". It seems like it would be a great place to add some theming to the ride.

Consider what you are paying for your Disney trip. Then figure what it is costing you per hour. Now figure if the 1-2 hours of park time it will cost by parking at DTD is worth not paying for parking at WDW. I also feel that the benifits of staying onsite make it worth the cost differences of staying offsite. Transportation from MCO to Disney is quite expensive but is included if you stay onsite.

She wasn't thrilled. You are not far off about the fingernail impressions either. She said it was about as bad as she expected. She was fine with the airtime but did not like the lift & the first drop.

I noticed that quite a bit of the snacks at WDW had gone up in price. Most just 20-40 cents, but with the parks numbers, that can turn into some real jack.

I sure hope they are not the same weekend. But if they are, I might just lean toward Holiwood Nights. We were at CM this year and while the event was a lot of fun, the ERTs were crowded. Most people could only get 3 laps on Maverick durning the Friday night ERT. We also have 2010 PP for CF so I am sure we will be to CP before the CM event.

Yes you read that right. My wife the absolute non coaster rider got her first (and probably only) lap in on Diamondback. We got to the park for the morning ERT and got 6 laps on DB without leaving the station. Followed this with 3 laps on Beast. Next up was FOF then Racer. A quick 1 cycle wait for Delirium as this is one of Katy's new favorite flats. At this point we headed down to Florence KY for one of my suppliers open house and free lunch. After getting back to the park around 4:00 we rode DB 3 times then we got Nancy on for our 10th lap of the day. We then headed back for a couple more on Beast. We were ready to call it a night and head north, but I noticed that DB's line was on the stairs. So we headed over for one quick lap. While we were waiting we saw Jackson, PKI Boy and a few others head into the station. We waited at the exit and got a 12th lap in with them before heading to Salvi's for dinner. Ride Count DB - 12 Beast - 5 Red Racer - 2 FOF - 1 Delirium - 1

It wouldn't surprise me if the cycling of the trains has something to do with engineers studying SOB to try to fix the ride.

Posted at 5:17 PM So what's the over & under that this piece of fudge is still around?

We thought hard about joining you 2 for SFKK but after getting home from CP halloweekends at 3:00 AM we were in no shape to head south.

I rode it in both years that it was open. While I don't remember the rides specifically, I do remember it being one of my favorite rides at the park. One night we got over 6 walk on laps on it. They made us run around and wouldn't let us re-ride it though.

Well dropping the pounds is the best thing that both of us can do. Not only for getting on coasters, but for our general health. I have been stuck in the 240 lb range for almost a year. At least this is down from my high of 270 lb. After Disney this weekend it is time to get down to an El Toro weight for next season. I am thinking that 220 would be a lot more comfortable on the bull.

Thanks Jesse. I still feel that this is a great deal. It depends on how many people you are putting into the value room. Our plan was booked in the late spring so it is the regular dining plan, not the counter service one. At $92 a night including tax, and 4 of us in the room, it is cheaper then just getting the DP by itself. Many of the dinner meals on our last trip would have been over the cost of the DP just by them self. MMMMMM Le Cellier Cheese soup with pretzel bread followed by a Fillet Mignon over mushroom risotto with Maple Creme Brulee for dessert.

Agreed. The only rides that I have been tight on have been Intamins. Wicked Twister & El Toro were the worst. I think that RCDB needs to add a line about maximum size of riders.

We are heading down to the mouse on Friday and leaving on the 30th. Planning on the MNNSHP for the 29th depending on weather. I decided not to pre book it. If it is sold out, I wouldn't have wanted to go then anyways.

This Free Dining is not quite the same as the one offered during the summer. The one during the summer was the regular dining plan no matter what level of room you booked. This one is for the counter service plan if you in a value resort and then upgrades as you go to moderates or deluxe resorts. I will be there the end of this week

Dvo, the Joyfest is not the same as the concert that was there this past weekend.

While we did not make if for BooBuzz, a friend that was going contacted me to see if we could hook up. I told him that we were going to the GOCC event since it was a Sunday instead of BooBuzz's Saturday. As the week went on we decided to head up Saturday night after work to meet up with him. My daughter invited one of her girl friends and we were all set for some scares & meet-ups. Of course my friend decided that Virgina Tech football was more important than riding coasters, so he changed his plans & bailed on the point. We still went. OMFG was it crowded. We got to the park just before 7:00 pm and headed to Happy Jacks Toy Factory. The line was about 30 minutes but was always moving. This was my first amusement park haunt. While I never got surprised by any of the scaractors, it was well done. I loved the beginning & the end dodging the streams. Next up was Erie Estates. We got in the queue and stood & stood some more. We waited nearly an hour in a slow moving line. Erie estates was a bit creepier compared to HJTF and I did get surprised once by a scaractor. We then headed back to an outdoor maze. We all wanted to do CornStalkers. The line for this was monstrously long. When we went through all of us were like "is this it". Nothing more then a path surrounded by cornstalks with scaractors that were not well hidden jumping at you with no surprises at all. At this point we decided it was time for some rides. We went over to the Wave Swinger with a 1 cycle wait. 2 teen in front of us twisted their chains all the way to the top after the ride-op got to the other side of the ride. The entire ride he was yelling at them to stop twisting the chains, but it was too late at this point. After the circle swing we rode SkyHawk for some airtime swinging. It was now 11:15 so we headed back to Millennium Force for a midnight ride. As we were walking back along the Frontier Trail the roaming monsters tried their best to get us. They were quite successful at getting my girls but not so much me. That was till we got close to the Millennium tunnel walk way where one rather large scaractor got me good. He was proud of himself too. As he walked away, we could hear him say "I got dad" and then chuckle in a ghoulish manner. We got in line for MF and were surprised that only the last queue was open. After 20 minutes we were in the station. Had another great ride but it was not a midnight ride. When we got back to the station we still had 5 minutes before the park closed. This was not enough time to get to another coaster except for Mantis, so we opted for a reride on MF. This time we waited for the last row. What a great coaster and even better in deep darkness of Lake Erie. As we pulled into the station we saw that they were loading the last train of the night but unfortunately they would not let us go & fill the empty rows. All & all we had a fun night at the park and got about what we expected to get done. 3 haunts, 3 flats and 2 laps on MF.

My ride on MS this last Sunday will be my last. This lap made me worried that my internal organs were going to be torn loose. I was in the second row BTW.

On Sunday I did see a couple kissing at the top of Millennium Force.