TR: Vegas Week 2009 (Oct 4-10, 2009)

TR: Vegas Week
October 4 - 10, 2009
Las Vegas, NV

I probably comes as little surprise to anybody that we did a Vegas Week again this year. At least it took us till April to think about doing Vegas week, instead of thinking about it at Christmas. Since it was already April, and May was going to be a bad month at work for me anyway, we decided to see what Vegas is like in October, after all, all our other visits have been in May. I did recall what we learned last year, and did not use Travelocity to make the arrangements, instead making my own arangements directly with the airline and hotel. As such after landing a $250 per person non stop round trip airline deal out of Cincinnati, and then landing rooms for $300 each for a week, right away we are only spending about half of what we did last year. I think if I could go back in time, I would have had us leave Friday night instead of spending the exorbitant Friday night room rates, then flying out first thing in the morning. I followed that up by getting us two tickets to see KA, which would be this years Cirque Du Soleil show, and I even scored a "Buy 1 get 1 for $25 deal from the Cirque Club. I'm saving a bunch of money already off of last year's arangements. Oh, and those discounted seats are in Row C of the orchestra level, not bab, in fact might even be a bit too close.

Okay, so between April and OCtober, Delta managed to meess around with both of my flight times, due to trimming down their schedule. I didn't really mind what they did to my return flight, moving it from 9AM to noon, however any brownie points they gained for that were lost by moving my flight to Vegas from a nice 4PM which would have gotten us in in the early evening to 8PM which meant we were getting in a night. We decided to try to further cut costs by having an uncle who was not going with us to drive us to the airport and aback, thus savin the long term parking fees.

So advance forward to the day of the trip, we decided to leave for my uncles house an hour early, after all he would do the same to us. We got to my Uncle's house, and they insisted on watching the Bengals game (it was vs. Cleveland you know, big rivalry game), and they finally relented when the game went into overtime. Then it was time to get in the car. There were 5 of us going, and we thougt we could stuff my cousin in the back with the luggage, at least just to get to the airport. However, that did not work out in the uncle who was staying back's Equinox, but ti would work in the uncle who was going's Explorer. Okay, that just means the non-traveling uncle would take us to the airport, then double back and change cars again, a little inconvineint but you do what you have to do. We thought about bailing on the plans to go to Cracker Barrel and hit a fast food place instead, but in the end wound up going to Cracker Barrel and as luck would have it, getting the slowest server they had. We didn't arrive at the airport late, we arrived at 6m, which was exactly 2 hours before our flight, so we got their just at the recommended time. Any cushion we tried to build up was gone.

I wqas happy that this year, the airlines on line system actually let us check in over the web, and pay the baggage fees over the web. So, we got to the airport, and all we had to do was show passes and ID's then drop our bags off. A bag claim decal was placed on each boarding pass, and then since we also learned from last year, I had requested wheelchair assistance for me. She can still walk, but long distances such as airports are a problem. Not a big deal they direct you to wait in a seating area by the ticketing counter, and then a staff person comes out and actually pushed the person all the way to their gate. Sometimes this can really help as they get to cut to the front of the security line, but that would not be a problem today as security was a walk up. Security was mostly painless, they wanted to scan my carry on bag twice, and then the TSA guy called out my name and we realized we had worked together at a former job. That done, I'm wlaways much relieved to be through security and we got to our gat eright around 7pm, which is just enough time to sit down and relax before boarding started at 7:30.

Soon we boarded the plane, and in flight entertainment has really changed. I used to get happy just to hear there would be an in flight movie, now I am bummed out if I'm not in a plane with the personal in seat entertainment system. Such as this plane, no in seat entertainment, wifi, or free meal on this flight. 4 hours is just about my limit before I go insane on a flight, but I better get used to it as I have two more trans atlantic segments already booked for next year. I'm guessing Delta sends the rolling concession stand down the aisle once for every 2 hours of shceduled flight time, on our way to Vegas the flight was 4 and a quarter hours and they came through twice. The first time I just got a Coke and pretzels, the second time I splurged for a $2 pack of peanut M&M's, cookies, and a coke. Other than that the flight was uneventful, and when we arrived in Vegas, they had a wheelchair attendant waiting on the jetway. This was a big help as he escorted us all the way from the jetway to the baggage claim, and then out to the taxi stand. We didn't even have time for airport slots, and yes their airport is lined with slot machines. We got lucky that our bags were some of the first off the plane, and we were soon waiting in line to even get out the door. They have crossing gates so at times the line just to get out of the airport backs up. We then got into a minivan cab and took the ride to New York New York. Yes, we got Tunneled, and somehow the ride from the airport to the hotel was like $23.

At New York New York, we walked from the doors to the hotel registration desk, and hit it at a good time as it was practially a walk right up line. Our desk agent was pleasant and we got some room upgrades and such. By the time we had our keys and were heading back to the ones who were watching oveer the luggage there was a crowd at the hotel check in area. Well, we didn't quite get adjacent rooms, in fact we don't even ride up in the same elevator. Mom and I were in the Century tower, and those elevators are near the hotel desk. We rode up to the 24th floor, and found our room just two doors down from the elevator, with a view looking out towards the strip facing the Tropicana, so nice view, and nicely furnished room. the iPod docking station in our room didn't quite like my iPhone, but no sweat I did bring a charger. These rooms seemes a bit larger than the rooms at Luxor, at the very least the bathroom was much nicer and had a real tub. After getting settled into our room we met the others back down on the gaming floor.

Early reports from the other room is that their room elevators were by the food court, and while they had a jumbo sized corner room, it was also about a mile from the elevators. We'll keep what we have, even though there room is technically one category higher. We headed to the players club desk so that those who needed to get cards could get cards, and those due free play could redeam that. We played around a bit at New York New York. Mom got the first good spin witha $250 hit on a quarter machine.

Ricky and I decided to take a walk. What we wound up doing was quite similar to what we did on our final day of last year's Vegas Week. We started out by walking to the Bellagio, we noted the consturction project between the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio was still happeining but it looks to be nearly finished. We played around a bit at the Bellagio and Rick checked out their poker room. By te poker room they had advertisements printed on playing card sized cards, an dI noticed they were using dealers shoes to pass them out. Okay, I lost at New York New York, but I held my own, even had a tiny profit at Bellagio. We then left Bellagio and walked across the street using one of the few street level crossings to Planet Hollywood. Our main reason for going into Planet Hollywood was to visi the Pleasure Pit. That is a table games area with suggestively dressed dancers that dance on little platforms above the gaming tables, while skimpily clas dealers deal the cards. I noted they even have one carousel of Pleasure Pit slot machines, bu thtye face away from the dancers, so what is the point. We played awhile in Planet Hollywood and it wasn't too kind to me. However, one of the neat things about going to Vegas is they have slot machines that we just don't have at the Indiana casinos, both new and old, and the jackpots are much higher. Even better, they have more machines, so all the games you can never get on at the boats, you can walk right up to here in Vegas.

Around 3 or 3:30 we finally leave Planet Hollywood, I am glad to see shops, restaurants and stuff have filled in the area between Planet Hollywood and MGM Grand so the area is a little less scary at night. We did stop into McDonalds for a quick buit to eat with some interesting characters and $8 value meals. We id head to the MGM Grand but did not go in, instead we walked up the stairs, crossed the road and headed back to New York New York. I can already see I like not having the extra commute to Luxor. We played a bit in New York New York then I finally roll into my hotel room around 5am.

At 8am Monday, I am getting woken up. What, only thre ehours sleep? Well that's what I get. wWe get up, get ready, and then hearing the buffet breakfast in our own hotel is $13 we head to McDonalds at the Excalibur. Okay, we were going to check out their buffet but the line was a bit oo long owing to the all you can eat all day deal they have going on. That is the newest gimmick in Vegas all-day buffet wrisbtbands for about $25-$30. You can't possibly eat that much, and they keep you at or near their casino all day. After breakfast, we head to Luxor and play (and I lose) for quite a while. At least the Luxor construction is completed, so the high limit room and poker room have returned to their rightful spots, and the Cirque Du Soleil theater area is renovated.

When we had our fill of Luxor, we walked out front and were surprised to find the monorail running, so we rode the free monorail to the Excalibur. I note the monroail station isn't quite as heavy handed about forcing you into the casino as it used to be. That said we played around awhile, and I won a bit at the Excalibur. Then we headed to the Tropicana, and remember what I said about mom and long distance walking, well that was about when it decided to bother her. We did try the free pull slot machine out front and each won a deck of cards and $10 in free slot play after signing up for cards. Tropicana has way too few people working their slot club counter, particularly since the guy running the free slot machine can crank through way more players than they can process in, and you have to be processed in to get your free gifts. I hear waits of a half hour for a card are not uncommon. They also still hav etheir $50 of slot play for $20 gimmick machines, no one goes home empty handed even if you lose it all you get a merchandise prize obstenisbly worth $20. We saw no takers. We played a bit at Tropicana, and then headed to New York New York.

We headed right for the food course and determined Broadway Burger was still open and still sellls large bacon double burgers, fries (maybe a bit scaled back) and a Pepsi for $7.50 (was $6) It is still a great deal fr a fast food dinner. Rick wants to watch Monday night foodball, which out in Vegas is Monday afternoon football. I play fora pit in New York New York, then go up to the room to get a rest in, we have another long night planned.

We decided I would go to Rick's room to meet, and on the way there I make the mistake of stopping off for a slice of pizza that they had been raving about. No, its not that, it was great pizza in the Italian "fold and eat" thin crust tradition. Then I go meat Rick and we decide to head to Paris. We get there by first walking through the MGM Grand to the monorail station, and then after paying $5 each are boarding a monorail train. Now the Paris would be the very next station, but that wouldn't be much of a ride, so we decide to ide all the way to the Sahara and back to catch theview of Vegas at night, as much as you can since it goes in back of the strip hotels. We got off the train at the Paris/Ballys station, and like most stations it is a long haul from the station to the casino, then we find out we are in Ballys, at this point Rick suggest stopping off for some pizza at Sbarros, see what I mean about the first pizza stop being a mistake?

We then take the incredibly long walk throught the shopping area into Paris. We don't acutally play much, if any, in Paris, instead we head to the Tour Eiffel, or Eiffel Tower experience. I find out that at night it is $15 instead of the ususal $10. We decide to cough it up anyway, and I notice things have changed since last year, now both escalators flanking the gift shop are entrances, the difference is one costs $15 to use, and the other $22, the $22 entrance has VIP rights, but at the current time the line wasn't even back to the merge point. At least this setup means you don't have two way traffic where they are taking your souvenir photo. We had a one elevator wait to go to the top of the half scale model tower. Up top the obseervstion deck was crammed beyond belief. Didn't stop me from getting some great night shots, or us enjoying the view but it sure was crowded. As an added bonus, we got to watch the Bellagio fountan show from up high, and don't know if they pipe the music over or not, but we had no probem hearing the soundtrack. After the Bellagio show we headed back down, and now they unload you right into the casino.

From Paris, we went to the doorman to get a cab to the Rio. The Paris casino doorman gets demerits for not at least mentioning the courtesy shuttle to the Rio. We didn't spend that long in the Rio, the big poker room was already closed, so Rick didn't get to see that, and the casino was pretty lifeless, and they were changing out machines and all. A lot of folks swer by the Rio, but it just seemed to be lifeless when we were there. Another quick cab ride and we were over at the Palms. The Palms was equally lifeless and soon we decided to just go back to New York New York particularly since we were losng and we could not get a cocktail server at the Rio or Palms to save our soul, even if they were dead and lifeless. Our taxi ride from the Palms to New York New York was noteworthy in that cab had the loudest squealing brakes known to man. We get back to New York New York, play for a litle bit but eventually decide to go up to the room a bit early, gotta get some sleep sometime.

We slept in a bit on Tuesday, then Mom and I headed down to get some lunch. We decided to try the America restaurant in the New York New York. America, is as you can guess a partriotic themed restaurant done up in red, white and blue, flags, decorations and the like. The main feature of the decoration package is a big mural map of the Unites States, what is so cool about it is it hangs down from the ceiling, and is in 3D. For example in St. Louis, there is a model of the St. Louis arch that poked out of the mural. The theme is even carried down to the table where drinks can be served in a souvenier Statue of Liberty glass, and the back of the bar, appeteizer and desert menu has a page or two on US trivia. Following the theme, the menu is mostly good old fashioned comfort food, I had a BBQ chicken sandwich and mom had the club. both were big sandwhiches with a mound of fries each. Tab for two with alcohol, tax and tip was around $40. After we had lunch we decided to walk the Las Vegas Strip.

To faciliate my Mom's enjoyment of the strip, we learned since we were guests of the hotel, we could rent a wheelchair from the hotel for a nominal fee, if you are not a hotel guest your rental is limited to just the casino grounds. Having secured a chair, we headed up out of New York ew York, over the bridge towards the MGM Grand but we did not go inside, instead we caught the elevator down to the street then proceeded to head north.

You first pass a few strip malls (as opposed to strip clubs...) that contain the usual tacky souvenir shops, restaurants, and stuff. The first one is best known for having M&M World and Coke World, along with a movie theater, Gameworks, half price show kiosk and a food court. We hit this last year so we pretty much avoided the shopping centers and headed for Planet Hollywood Casino. Along the way we did stop to look at New York New York, Monte Carlo, and City Center from the other side of the street.

We then went into Planet Hollywood, our main purpose was to show off the Pleasure Pit, but while the hot pink gaming tables were there, the area was closed and the girls that make the area so special were not on duty. We played a very little bit at Planet Hollywood before continuing. It should be noted there are three speedramps in front of the Plant Hollywoo, all going up, there isn't even a ramp, so we had to back track to the other end of the casino to get to the street. According to Wiki, changes were made to improve pedestrian access from the strip, so I'd hate to see the former arrangements. What I do miss is the former Aladin theming when it was one of the themed resorts. I notice resorts that are decorated with arabesque touches are dwindling, I think only the Sahara remains in that regard.

We headed next door to Paris, now I had shown this one to Mom last year, and to Ricky the night before. The rest hadn't seen it with all its faux outdoor sky and parisian street feel, complete with the legs of the Eiffel Tower coming up through the casino. We rested and played a while in Paris, and while there Ricky tried Casino War. Remember the card game War you played as a child, it was probably a simple game your parents taught you and your sibling to get you out of their hair for a long time as the game is incredibly simple to play, yet seems to go on for hours or until you give up and just count who has the most cards when you got tired of it. It's almost a forerunner to the customizable collectible card games as I can remember games lasting several days, and being protective of your part of the deck between sessions . Well not the casinos have discovered it, maybe after it was used as joke in the movie Vegas Vacation. Anyway, the game is real stupid out in Vegas, You sit down and toss a chip on the table, the dealer deals two cards, one to you, one to himself. If your card is higher (aces always high), you get paid even money, if not you lose, unless you War. Getting a tie lead you to war, you can either surrender the war, and lose half your bet in the process, or go to war. Going to war requires you to post a second bet identical to your first, and the house does the same. So if you started with a bet of 1 chip, there are now 3 out on the table. Just like the kiddie card game, three cards are dealt and burned, and the fourth card upbecomes your new card. Winner takes all three stacks. I hear their is slight bonus of 8-1 or 10-1if your war ends in a tie. The catch, if you didn't get it is all in the war, if you win the war you essentially win $1 for every $2 you put up, but if you lose the war you lose all your stake. That's where the house edge comes from. Insanely stupid. And they use a continuous shuffle machine with 6 decks, so any kind of card counting is out the window.

From Paris, we walked past but did not stop in Bally's, particularly since the moving sidewalks from the strip were out of order, and its a long walk. Views of the Bellagio and Ceasars Palace coming into view across the street.

One of the safety minded features of Vegas is the building of overhead bridges with complete ADA access with elevators, escalators and stairs, followed closely by laws mandating their use when available along with walls and fences to further encourage their use. We crossed over the street and looked through the victorian themed Bill's Gambling Hall. It's a small dinky casino but is part of the solid wall of Harrah's owned casinos that I think stretches clear from Paris all the way to Harrah's Much the same as MGM/Mirage owns most of the places on the other side of the street, with the gaping exception of Ceasar's Palace.

We didn't linger long in Bill's before stopping in the Flamingo for a while. I mean now we are getting closer to old Vegas, the Flamingo is a name that has been around for a long time. After having our fill of the Flamingowe proceeded on past the dink Osheas casino (Irish theme), and also bypassing the pagoda of the Imperial Palace. Imperial Palace sets back off the strip, and its access from the strip has all the charm of a dark alley. It doesn't help I have also heard the word Dump used to describe it. Instead we took a short trip through the New Orleans/Mardi Gras themed Harrahs. Harrahs has a clever tactic, the sidewalk bends inward to obstensibly allow for the ramps to their parking garage, and they have taken full advantage by putting a popular club in the center and routing the sidewalk so its easier to walk through the casino than stay on the sidewalk.

We came to the Venetian, themed after Venice. A big pool out front has gondolas, the Dodges Palace, bell tower, rialto bridge, San Marcos all figure into the facade. We tried to get Rick and Wanda to take a romantic gondola ride, but that didn't happen. We were then further dismayed at the lack of wheelchair accesibility. The only way in seemed to be a small 'service entrance' from the overhead street connector. We spent some time in the Venetian and its sister casino the Pallazo, joined by a high end shopping area. It was a fun time, including the slot machine that decided it didn't like us and gave both Rick and I a nice shock. Ouch, that wasn't nice.

After leaving the Palazzo, we crossed the bridge over to the Wynn, but did not go in. We instead decided to turn around, so we crossed the bridge over to Fashion Show Mall, walked past Nieman Marcus to get to the bridge over to Treasure Island. Treasure Island is one of those casinos that is losing all its interior theming. It seems like casinos like to keep the fantasy facades, but inside they all present the same modern looking neutral color based gaming areas. We didn't spend much time in Treasure Island, but went outside to look at the pirate ships in the caribean style port area where the Sirens on TI show takes place. We also learned we were an hour or more away from the first show.

Moving right along, we came to the Mirage. We didn't go into the Mirage, but upon learning we were about 10 minutes away from the eruption, we gathered along the rail by the volcano to experience a Volcanic Eruption, a show based on water, fire, lights and music. First the volcano simmers and smokes, then smal l flames shoot out, then larger flames, then torches in the lagoon light up so it looks like the whole lagoon is on fire, then the blast gets bigger and bigger until it lights up the sky. It gets a bit toasty standing by the rail with those flame effects going on.

After the volcano show, we headed to the Forum Shops where we rode the spiral escalators before heading to the back of the mall to try to watch the statue show, but we were almost an hour away from showtime. Four visits and four failures to see this show. One of these years I am going to see it. We headed to Ceasar's Palace for dinner at their buffet style restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but you got good carved meats, prime rib, sushi, and a whole lot of fancy things. When we thought we had seen it all they brought out trays of crab legs and shrimp. A nice touch is they went with the bite sized sampler deserts.

After dinner, we headed out of Ceasar's Palace and took the walk to the Bellagio. This is where we restedafter dinner playing at the Bellagio for awhile. After leaving Bellagio, we took the real long walk through the contruction tunnel past City Center, skipped the Monte Carlo and headed to the New York New York where we stopped and played some more.

After getting mom settled into her room, Ricky and I took another evening walk, we looked at Coyote Ugly, but it was packed like sardines, playing the same crap DJ dance music you hear all over. We headed to the MGM Grand played for probably too long, then went back to our rooms. Exciting evening, I know.

Wednesday is my day with Mom, to be headlined by watching "KA" by Cirque Du Soleil at the MGM Grand Mom and I started the day a bit late by heading to the Denny's a few doors down from the MGM Grand right around 11:30. I miss Denny's as they are now gone from our area, but they always have done a good breakfast.

After Denny's we headed back to the MGM Grand, making a couple stops along the way. Our first stop was the Coca Cola shop. The first floor is the general gift shop where all manner of Coca Cola merchandise can be had, but that's not why I'm here. We go to the second floor where they have soda fountain in the back of the store. The feature item here is the "Coke around the world" sampler package. For $7 they give you about an 8-10 oz cup of 16 different drinks made by the Coca Cola company throughout the world.

I was honestly thinking they would give us maybe a shot glass or double shot full of each one, but trust me when I say to get about 3-4 of your friends around before you do this. The drinks come to you on two cafeteria trays with numbered sections, they also give you a drink guide so you can tell which numbered glass is which drink.

On the day I was there the sampler included: Inca Cola (Peru), Sunfill Mint (India), Stoney Ginger Beer (South Africa), Aquarius Citrus (Taiwan), Delaware Punch (USA), Vegitabeta (Japan), Smart Watermelon (China, Kinley Lemon (England), Lift Apple (Mexico), Fanta Kolita (Costa Rica), Krest Gingerale(Mozambique), Bibo Kiwi Mango (South Africa), Bibo Pine Nut (South Africa), Smart Apple (China), Beverly (Italy), and Mezzo Mix (Germany). I mention the list since I have read other reviews and it sounds like the menu changes regularly.

We tried the lot of them, acting like wine fantics, first smelling each drink to determine smell, swishing it around to determine carbonation, then drinking a little of it.

Most of them are to be quite, frank, just flat out wierd. The mint soda tastes like mouthwash, the Aquarius Citrus reminded us of a bold flavored Fresca, Delaware Punch is basically grape juice,Vegitabeta is basically orange gatorade, one oddity is we love all things Waterlmelon, so of course Mom disliked the Smart Watermelon. One of the Apple sodas is just like Jones Sour Apple, Pine Nut is an odd one, its a coconut flavored drink. I forget which one it is now (and I'm not talking about Beverly, but getting past the smell of the drink was an issue. Then there is Beverly, Beverly has gained quite the reputation as possibly the foulest soft drink ever created. Let's just say in a masochistic moment, I reconfirmed that, even though I have had it at Epcot. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to kill some time. One last comment about their place, they were good enough to have a restroom right by the soft drink sampling area, but they thought one one urinal would suffice for the men's room. After 16 soft drink samples, really?

After our soft drink sampling, we went down in the Coca Cola elevator, its a glass elevator in the shape of a giant Coke bottle. We then headed next door to take the tour of M&M World. Yes, we came out with another insanely expensive bag of mix-it-yourself candy.

We then headed to the MGM Grand. Our first order of business was to go all the way to the back of the casino and pick up our show tickets. That is one of Vega s's anti-scalping measures,wanting you to pick up show tickets, in person, day of show. Then they make you produce the confirmation letter, an ID, and the credit card used to buy the tickets. Recall last year, I had trouble at the Bellagio when they took my 7:00 reservation, and put it in their system as a 10:30 reservation. This year, no such trouble existed and in 30 seconds or less I had my tickets. We spent the next few hours playing at the MGM Grand.

We had heard we should be there an hour early, so around 5:50 we head to the doors for the 7 pmshow. We are greeted by an usher who appreicates the punctuality and enthusiasm, and then lets us know the doors won't be opening until 6:20 tonight. I suspect this is due to the fact the show appeared to be less than half full. Time to play some more slots.

On our way in, we stop at the usual sales table to get our $15 program book and then our ticket is scanned. As we travel through the lobby area, we notice this isn't quite like any other theater, instead the lobby appears as if you are traveling through a tribal villiage at night on the way to a celebration. The "tavern" is open, and that contains your bar and concession stand. We had gotten there just after the doors opened, and of course everybody dashes right to the next set of doors. They tried to encourage people to get their snacks early reminding them all seats are reserved, there is no need to rush. The staff in this area discourages the use of the term "usher", instead they are villiagers welcoming you to the celebration. We passed and talked with several friendly viliagers and upon showing them our tickets they all commented we had fantastic seats, but worried if my Mom could get down the stairs to them.

You line up at the town gates to enter the ceremonial area, and at about 6:30there is a brief moment when a town crier type person calls out "Open the gates!" You then head in the doors and up a curved rampup to the theater. The way the theater is arranged is both entrances lead to ramps thatgo up to a walkway that crosses the house from left to right about halfway back. The seating is stadium style, so you go up or down from there. As we would learn our seats were in the second row. The good news is the stairs are pretty shallow, and there are railings all the way down. We checked the wheelchair and recieved a claim check and then the usher type person helped us down to our seats. We wound up being seating next to a couple from the Seattle area if I recall correctly. Real friendly people As we were waiting for the show another usher type person omes to our section and I guess one of the benefits of sitting up close is they talk to you about the show and do questions and answers. The couple next to us are big theater buffs, so the conversation was real interesting. This staff members other job is to inform the people sitting in the front row of the "Front Row Rules" Essentially, there is no traditional stage, just a barrier separating the audience from a deep pit, so stay in your seats and don't approach the barrier. All during the load in a fireball would erupt from the pit. The safety warning was obstensibly about the fire effects, but strangely once the show started there were no more fireballs.

They do a funny take on the usual house rules. Essentially they talk about no cameras, and of course somebody starts taking pictures, so the host tosses their camera into the firepit with a small explosion, then they say no mobile phones, and of course somebody gets a phone call, so now their phone goes flying into the fire pit. By the end of it, they throw the obnoxious 'guest' into the firepit to a big explosion.

The KA theate looks like no other theater you have seen. Cirque has always been on the cutting edge of stage technology, even in their tent shows, but imaging Cirque with the seemingly bottomless pockets of a Las Vegas casino funding them. I already mentioned the town village lobby, but inside the house, instead of the sides of the theatre being plain walls, they have an intricateseries of metal platforms that the actors use as either an extension of the stage, or a rigging to do aerial acts. The star of the show is the stage, or lack thereof. There is no traditional stage, instead there are several movable platforms. When I say movable platform, I mean a platform on the ends of robot arms, it can raise, lower, turn, spin, tip, even tip up from a horizontal orientation to a vertical orientation. Yes, it can still spin even in the vertical orientation. This is in addition to having manholes in the stage that can open and close, and numerous "pegs" that can project out of the stage surface to provide handholds to the performers when the stage is vertical. The surface is also a LCD projection, but not only that, it is interactive and can respond to the performers movement. The technology doesn't end with the stage, every seat in the theater has its own speakers for the ultimate in surround sound, and we learned our close up seats also recline to allow us to see the high up parts of the show.

The storyline is your basic tribal celebration ruined by the attack of a rival tribe, leading to a show that is essentially the battle between the two, and of course the tribe you are visiting wins. Highlights of the show include a scene where they are trying to stay on a small boat that is tossing and turning in the sea, a slow scene where they are on the sandy beach leading to a moment where the platform covered in sand tips up vertical dumping the sand in a big sandshower, an aerial act in the middle of the show that just has so much going on its sensory overload, their take on the traditional circus "Wheel of Death", a scene where they appear to be climbing up a sheer cliff face, in this scene the archers are shooting arrows at the wall, whch covers the "pegs" shooting out from the wall to form handholds. The interactive LCD systems allowsyou to see the rock face crumbling as they climb. Towards the end of the show there s a a full battle scene while the stage is full vertical, and they are moving about this spining sheer vertical wall effortlessly. The finale even includes indoor pyro effects. I'm going to rank this Cirque second only to "O" at Bellagio. My full cirque list is: "O","KA", "Quidam"," Corteo", " Saltimbanco" in order of preference.

So after the show we claimed the chair as instucted, and headed to the KA Gift Shop. On the way out of the theater the staff checks the claim checks on all wheelchairs leaving the theater. On the way out they were pushing the ultimate KA gift pack:program, soundtrack CD, and making of DVD - for $65. The couple next to us highly recommended the DVD,and I found they were willing to give me credit for the already purchased program, so I could complete the set for $50 more. I then got a KA t-shirt from the gift shop. Yes, it was a very expensive night at the theatre.

On the way out of the MGM Grand, I showed mom an old Sigma Derby mechanical horse racing game. It's one of those novelty games they keep around since they have more casino floor space than they know what to do with. We headed out of the MGM Grand, returned to New York New York, then returned the wheelchair, then played some at NYNY. Ricky asked meif I wanted to go to a club, but I declined. I would later found out he didn't enjoy the club either. Too high of a cover charge, crap music, too crowded, drinks too high, etc.

Thursday came,and I started the day with an alone day. First I got up and then headed over the Exclaibur for a breakfast buffet. Sure its around $15,but you have a breakfast bar that can't be improved upon. They had at least three styles of scrambled eggs, burrittos, fresh fruit, all the standards, pastries, omlettes. It was a great way to start the day. I then walked over the Luxor manly to cash a $80 ticket I had forgotten to cash on Monday. It seems while you can port slot club points between the two casinos, you have to take cashout tickets to the issuing casino to be paid. Of course I wound up playing a bit at Luxor before walking out front to be on the first monorail of the day over to Excalibur. I played a little bit more on my way through the Excalbur and headed to the MGM Grand.

When I got to the MGM Grand I headed to the back of the casino into the shopping mall area, and then all the way to the back of the shopping area to where CSI: The Experience had opened less then a month prior to my visit. As I approached the area two greeters dressed as CSI officers have an information table out in front of the entrance, and I learned you buy tickets at the MGM Garden Arena box office. $30 later I had an admission ticket. I returned to the attraction entrance and rode down the escalator into the exhibit. At the bottom, they tear your ticket and admit you to an anteroom where you can decide which of the three cases you would like to solve, or you can have them select a case for you. To help you decide brief descriptions of the cases appear on huge signs around the room. Case 1 is a mysterious car crash into somebody's living room, case 2 is a body found behind a seedy motel, and case 3 is a skelton found out in the desert. Each case required different scientific techniques to solve, and each case description tells you which labs will be involved, so you can decide based on your particualr interests. In my case only case 2 involved the Electronics and technology lab, so I chose it. So did most of our group.

When I say group, you go through the attraction with a small group using timed entrance tickets. Once inside you can collaborate or go at it solo, your choice. Having three different cases helps to improve capacity as they can have essentially three teams going through at a time, not to mention it adds replay value for the attraction. Want to try your hand at another case, replays are $26 each. You must make a decision while still in the ante room so that you can receive a clipboard with the correct materials. You are also assigned a unique agent ID number which will come in handy later. On your clipboard, you recieve an investigators note sheet. It has areas for the crime scene and each of the labs, don't worry its mostly of the multiple choice/ fill in the blanks variety. After everybody has their paperwork, you are let into the first room.

In the first room you stand to watch an introductory video by the creator of CSI and Gil Grissom. They talk a little bit about the CSI franchise and then Gil gives treats you like you are a new recruit in his office. He gives you some pointers, instructions for touring the exhibit, and then sends you on your way.

At this point you go down one of three paths depending on what case you chose. You are led to a room corresponding to your case, and to make it easier the cases are color codes, green, blue or red, you merely follow the signs for your assigned case. When you get there you enter a room that has a big tableuax of the crime scene in front of you. Here you are invited to take as much time as you need to study the scene and take down any notes you feel are important. It is worth noting you can't return to this room, so like in real like you may only have one chance to see the crime scene and gather what you think might be important. Oh, and no you can't use a camera, as photograpy in the experience is forbidden.

Your lab paper has a section of graph paper with some key features already drawn in but not labeled. You are instructed to examie the scnene, look for any useful evidence and then draw it into the crime scnee diagram. As Gil just told you, if it isn't in your report, you didn't see it. Some of the stuff is really subtle, like in the one I did you can learn the name of the hotel by reading the labels on the dumpster, and if you are tall or don't mind climbing on the railings you could look into the dumpster, there is a clue in there, but not vital as the same clue appears in a far more visible location. I don't want to give the answer or any clues away in case you want to try this for yourself. Just be sure to note everything no matter how insignificant it may seem. in my crime scene you come accross a wdead waitress in the back of a seedy motel with tire tracks over her waitress outit. Her purse is beside her and the contents of the purse have strewn about the ground, and there are other things of note. I'll talk about some in the various lab stations.

When you think you have it all, you exit the room with the crime scene and enter a room with one of those light up tables like you see in the show, the table has areas for each case, your instructions suggest you stop at the layout table to make sure you caught everything. In my case, I was surprised at the stuff I missed that they showed you, noting that some of the stuff they show you are red herrings just like the real show. They make a big deal about "Are you smart enough to solve the case" but with constant reminders like the layout tables and labs that are for the most part real obvious, I don't think its really that much of a challenge.

After you leave the layout tables you can either go to the stations in lab 1, or go to a computer terminal in lab 1. I can make a case for going in either order. At the computer terminals you tell it which case you have, then you can watch videos from the various CSI characters who talk about their roles in CSI in general, and your case in particular. You can get quite a few hints out of these videos. It also has a section where you can view videos recorded by prior guests to the CSI Experience, these may or may not be useful, and you have the ability to record your own video for others as the computer is equipped with a camera and microphone.

So I'm doing Srime 2, so I was directed to stop at the Digital Evidence, Latent Prints, and Impression Evidence stations in lap area 1. Each lab station has a display and perhaps a video that talk about that area of forensic science in general before you move to the hands on area.

In digital evidence, you learn the victim's cell phone was found (you should have noticed it when you did the crime scene), you are now shown to a computer station where the contents of her cell phone memory have been downloaded to the computer and you can examine her contacts, incoming texts, outgoing texts, pictures, etc. Above the computers is a sign with copies of her cell phone records, as well as those of the people she most recently had contact with. This exercise helps you build a time line. In this case I got the backstory that our victim was an asipring actress (explains the headshot photos found torn at the crime scnene), and piecing together the contents of her incoming and outgoing texts you learn she recieved a role in the new play, and she tells her boyfriend and her best friend (another aspiring actress), the best friend wants her to celebrate and invites her to party. The text messages further show her accepting the invite, but then its only incoming messages from that point, all from her boyfriend all asking where she is, and why isn't she responding. The cell phone records concur with this. For your labwork, you are asked to identify who she sent her last text message to, and the date. Sure, you could do that in a matter of seconds, but you wouldn't get the back story then, now would you? You are also asked to translate what a cryptic incoming text means, this partly requires knowlege of text message slang and knowing the name of the motel, which you owuld only know if you read the front of the dumpster surely helps.

Moving on to Latent Prints, recall those headshots I just mentioned in the last lab, well they collected the headshots into evidence and discovered fingerprints on them that are not the victims. The photo is now visible to you under glass, they even furnish a magnifying glass. Try as you might you won't see the fingerprints unless you turn on the ALS (alternate light source) in this case UV light which causes the fingerprints printed in black light ink to appear. Sitting next to the photo you have a mostly clear block you can actually pick up and hold that has the fingerprint you just saw in the photo printed on it. Now you can use that block to line up with the fingerprints of the various suspects, find the match, note it down on your notesheet.

Moving on to the Impression Evidence lab - Remember the tire tracks found on the ground and over the waitress's body, well they got an impression of them. It also so happens a stolen car was recovered near the scene, I think the stolen car is a model Red Herring, anyway the impression they found is preinted on the center of the lab station, and you are given blocvks with tire samples of three suspect cars. Just like the fingerprints, there is only one clearly obvious choice. This one is a bit harder in that you have to remember you are looking at an impression, that means ridges are really valleys, and vice versa. On your notesheet, note which tire tread smaple matches the impression like a good CSI.

After you finish Lab 1, entirely on your own time, when I as there they didn't try to speed you up or anything, take a little or as much time as you like. Of course, I think how much you get out of it depends on how much you put into it. Official guideline is to allow 60-90 minutes. There are other lab areas, such as the one dealing with firearms that are skipped as they don't pertain to your case, but might deal with one of the other two cases, which also helps the replay value to see the other two crime scenes. .

I went to Lab 2, they have a second layout table which appeared to be just like the one in the center of lab 1, giving you another chance to see the crime scene photos. They also have computer terminals, and I think the expert/colleague (your fellow tourists) videos are different on them.

For my case I was first sent to Toxicology/Drug Chemistry. It seems you found (and if you were like me, totally ignored the white rock crystals found by the body at the crime scene. You have a sample of the mystery substance and have to do testing to determine what it is, for this you are shown a rack of 'test tubes' pushing the button by each one will casue it to light up in the color the liquid would turn if the reagent were mixed with the mystery substance. A reaction color code chart is posted above the test tube rack, Identify the drug, mark it down on the sheet. The one clear obvious answer rule applies here as well, and if you watched all the Expert videos from the lab 1 computer station, you already know the answer anyway.

The next station was Forensic Entomlogy, ah you can't have a good classic Gil Grissom era CSI case without insect evidence. In this case insects on the body can be used to put a timeline on how long the victim has been dead. They have a microscope incased in plexiglass that you can look into to see the insect sample, then a computer terminal gives you a little entomolgy lesson and models the insects growth cycle. all you need to is match the two identical images and it tells you the time estimate. This does take some skill as it gives you a handful of stages in the insects growth, and it tells you the time to advnace to each stage, you have to add the times together to determine the answer. Mark it down on your paper, the other two choices aren't even reasonable. One choice can't be right as she was still alive, and the other doesn't seem right as she had already gone missing.

For the last lab station Forensic Biology/DNA you have reason to suspect your victims nametag does not reveal her true name. No ID can be found on the body but you were able to get her DNA, you also have the DNA profiles of 6 couples who have filed missing persons reports matching der description. By using a block that has the victims DNA profile cut out of it, and laying it over the DNA profiles of the parents, you can determine the victims true name, write it in on your note sheet. Again, there is one clear choice here, as it is the only one that matches every single DNA marker.

After finishing the labs you report to the medical examiners office for the autopsy, this is done in the three rooms, follow your path style. Here I was most impressed in that they have a model of a body sitting on the autopsy table, and as Dave the coroner is talking to you via video monitor the parts of the body he is mentioning show up on the model in full color projection. Your notesheet has a sketch of a body for you to make notes if you wish. After going over the body, the coroner will give his commentary and render his exper opinion, note that down on your notesheet.

From here you leave the Medical Examiners office and go to a computer lab. Here you sit down to a terminal and "Give your Report " to Gil Grissom. I was really glad to see these computers were not equipped with cameras and microphones, instead Gil leads you through a multiple choice test. The answers to all his questions should already be on your notepaper by now. When the quiz is done, it explains each answer, and then Gil comes on the screen with either a congratulatory message or he tells you where you might have gone wrong. In the end you get to see a short video of what actually did happen.

After that comes the marketing piece, you are asked to enter your email address for Gil to email you your diploma, theat fine, but then it asks for all kinds of demographics. In the end if you comply with their wishes, they tell youthat you can pick up a printed diploma in the gift shop. That should be your first clue. On my way out of this room, I was ahnded a survey form to fill out about how I enjoyed the attraction. In the end you turn in your clipboard, survey and pen as you exit the attraction into the gift shop, the notepaper is yours to keep as a souvenit.

The gift shop itself is full of both CSI: Experience and general CSI souvenirs, of course you can get the CSI stuff in many of the tacky gift shops, but these are the official souveniers. And yes, you can get your diploma free, the hitch is they try to upsell you on a frame or a portfolio for your diploma. This attraction is so new, that the day I was there they were still puttng the gift shop together. I exited back up the escalator and played just long enough at MGM Grand to score a free beer.

My next stop is the Pinball Hall of Fame. The Pinball Hall of Fame is not located on the Vegas Strip, but they are conveniently accesed by bus. So I left the MGM Grand, used the bridge to cross over to the Tropicana, dodged the Tropicanasa irrigation system and cars to get o the bus stop located in front of that casino. I'd say not 4 minutes and $1.75 later I was on my way to pinball paradise. Articualted busses, that is those that can bend in the middle are still a novelty to me, and not knowing where I was, and despite the clear audio announcements on the bus, I fired up the GPS/Maps module on the iPhone and mapped out the Pinball place and the bus. Cool use of technology in an urban setting. I was thrown a bit off guard when instead of pull ropes to signal the driver, their busses have pushbuttons located on the center poles. So following the GPS and the instructions I had been given, I got off the bus at Pecos, crossed over over Pecos and Tropicana and found myself looking at not the nicest shopping center. The big sign on the store list out front read simply "PINBALL" I headed to the back of the shopping center nearest a twin movie theater and found the nondescript museum. Big pitucre windows let the row of machines inside smile at you to welcome you in.

Upon entering, there is no admission fee, and you enter at the center of what might be 4 or 5 rows of games. Directly across from the entrance are three conveniently located change machines, and you learn the games do use quarters, not tokens so don't fell scread of buying in for more than you will have time to play. The layout is real simple, there is little room for decortion, what you do have are the 5 rows of pinball machines. The front row is a single row proudly facing the front windows with mostly newer and some of the more unusual machines one one side, and some older machines on the other side. then you have three double sided rows , then a single sided row in the back with an airhockey table and some tables and chairs along the back wall as a sort of party area. Along the two end sides are some smaller novelty arcade machines as well as some classic video games. There may be some games here that would be redemption games in most settings, but here they are novelty games, no tickets are awarded. For the most part the video games are along the side walls or hidden in the back row. A sign in the front recognizes them wnning an award for the Best Arcade. The games themselves range from 1950's era electormechanical pins all the way to the newest machines off the factory floor. Not only are the domestic manufacturers represented, but there is a selction of foreign made games as well. In general, the rule is that a game produced before 1990 is 25 cents, '90s games and early 2000's are 50 cents, and the brand new releases are 75 cents. Of course, this is all subject to change based on the rarity or unusual factor of a machine. If a machine is particulalry rare or expensive to maintain, its cost goes up. The important thing to remember, expesially for a guy whe grew up in 3 ball Add-A-Ball territory. (Cincinnati banned pinball machines from awarding specials or replays up until quite recently) is that the machines in the museum are, for the most part, set to give the full 5 ball game, and replays/matches can be had. I'm not sure how many places offer 5 ball pinball since even the museum was making a big deal about offering the FULL FIVE BALL GAME! For the most part, the machines had little cards down by where the information cards that told the vintage and manufacturer of each game, as well as any noteworthy features, some games also have a little card telling if the machine had recently had any major restoration done to it.

So I started with several older electromechanical games, the kind with the car odometer style score readouts, and usually much simpler gameplay without multiball. Note simpler does not mean easier, just easier to know what you have to do. One of the games had the novelty of extra long flippers. I saw a lot of my childhood favorites in the room, but I resisted the urge of playing them, instead focusssing on older or unusual games. One of them Orbitor I maybe had the unusual feature of having a playfield that appears to be cratered instead of flat, and the outhole is truly that a drop hole, so you can play the ball off the bottom of the playfield even below the flippers.

Speaking of unusual machines they have a Pinball Circus, according to the signage this is an ultra rare machine that didn't make it out of the prototype stage, and only two prototypes survived. The concept here was a pinball machine that could fit in the size of a video game cabinet. The machine has 5 levels, the first is the main playfield, its naturally smaller than a traditional machine, but if you can hit the right rampyou go up to level 2, on level 2 you have to flip atjust the right time forit to go up to level 3, on level 3, the ball will hopefully fall into an elephants tusk that will raise it to level 4, here you have to sink the drop targets to access the chain lift to level 5, in level 5 it's another row of drop targets to reveal the jackpot target in the clowns mouth. I can see why it was scuttled, as it looks like a mechanical maintenance nightmare. Being a rare game, I paid a full dollar for the right to play it, but you did get the full 5 ball game.

Overall they have 200 machines, with about 150 of them being pinball machines, the story goes the operator has a massive collection of about 1,200 machines that he rotates through the museum, and he is looking to move to a facility that is both larger and closer to the strip. It might be able to hold 500 machines at one time. They also had a cocktail table sized pinballl machine, and an example of the old Bingo pinball. Bingo pinball was once a gambling game, put in money, shoot 5 balls, no flippers its purely what drop holes the balls land in. If you miss all the target holes, the game returns the ball to you, so you will get 5 numbers. At the end the numbers you hit light up on a bingo card, get the specified number of lights in a row and you won credits. In days of old, these credits would be cashed out under the counter, here they hae a sign making it very clear you are paying just to see the machine operate, no cash outs. At least it was only a nickle, they also had two other odd nickel games, where isntead of a ball, your nickel was the game piee, they were both one offs of pinball. One was basically a slot machine in that you would flick your coin with a lever towards a group of targets, it would light up the slot mahine symbol your coin landed in, repeat three times. The other was more complex, you got to flick the coin more times, this time the rowsof lanes had differing score values, the harder the shot the higher the score.

In one corner of the place, you can watch them restoring a machine. The snack bar is a couple of vending machines, gift shop is whatever you can get out of the crane machines and the like, unless you find a machine they want to sell. Prices are posted on some of the games I played around $10 worth of pinball, and bought an A&W Cream Soda at the reasonable for Vegas price of 75 cents for a can. The drinks machine did have some unusual drinks in it. For the nickel operated games, you can get a roll of nickels from the candy machine. As it turns out I caught the return bus right in front of the shopping center, and it dropped me off right in front of New York New York. I got the phone call remindng me to met them to go to Freemont Street as I was walking in the front door. So I had a short time to run my stuff up to my room, get freshened up and then return to the taxi stand. Here we shared a taxi van down to Freemont Street.

If I didn't already mention it the taxi vans are designed to seat 6 passengers, but since the local rules limit them to 5 passengers the back seat has a seat divider effectively making it a two seat bench. We were dropped off at the Plaza, but crossed the street to walk down the street. Freemont Street, or "Old Vegas" Here instead of massive casino resorts that take up an entire large city block, here they cram like 8-10 casinos in a four small city block area. These casinos are lightly themed, if they have any theming. The attraction here is the small size, lower prices for food, and the nostalgia factor. The casinos have also banded together to market themselves as a attraction to get tourists down from the strip. Sure, they don't have a volcano, but they have a 4 block line LED matrix board built over the street, and the street has been closed off to vehicles, and filled with bars, stages, souvenir stands and the like creating a "street party" atmopshere. At night they show a light show on the matrix boards every hour as part of the entertainment package.

We started off by going into Mermaids,which is a tiny casino that uses $1 cocktails and cheap eats to get people inside. Those are tiny $1 cocktails and the $1 fried oreos were the worst I've ever had They also haven't invested in the technology, as their slot machines are still coin based instead of using the cashless ticket system used in almost all modern casinos. To put the crowning blow on i all, we got out just before a fight erupted on the gaming floor between two people drunkenly swaggering with 40 ouncers.

We headed down the street stopping in the Horseshoe where apparently the million dollar display has returned, the Fitzgerald, and the Four Queens. We had dinner at the Four Queens, where we were assigned to the same table as last year. This year though we passed on the $7 prime rib to have the $12 ribeye steaks instead. They sell good food, at cheap prices and are apparently pretty popular. We also hit the souvenir stores along the way. Every now and then we would take a break from gaming to go out and watch the hourly light show. We wound up staying till the last light show at midnight, then caught a taxi van at the Plaza to return to New York New York.

After we played awhile at New York New York and it was just Ricky and I left we walked next door to the Monte Carlo and played some more. We played until we looked at the time and were shocked to learn it was 4AM. We then returned to our hotel and went to bed.

Friday arrived, and I admit I had pretty much had my fill of Vegas, I was losing and all. We wound up not even leaving our room till 2pm and had lunch at the food court. I must recommend Greenburg's Deli great deli sandwhiches. Most of the family was willing to just hang out in NYNY for the day, but Ricky and I decided to make one final night walk.

We started by walking up the street to the same McDonalds between Planet Hollywood and MGM Grand that we stopped at the first night, then went to Planet Hollywood to enjoy the Pleasure Pit one last time. Next we went to the Flamingo and spent some time exploring the Flamingo animal habitat and Bugsy Siegel memorial in the hotel courtyard. We admitted its probably a better activity for daytime than nighttime.

Our next stop was Harrah's where we playeda a little blackjack at the outdoor club out in the carnival area. We stopped soon thereafter when we noted blackjack only paid 6:5 instead of the usual 3:2. We walked further to Casino Royale and tried the promotional machines outside the casino. These are slot machines with skill stops,so it is supposedly a game of skill but in the end the game issues a $50 voucher without a barcode. The hitch is you can only redeem that $50 voucher for a special pink $50 bill that can only be played in specified machines. Yes, its the typical promotional game where you only get a cash prize if you hit the jackpot on the machine, anything else merely awards more promotional credits. It's a popular Vegas come on.

We next went to the Venetian, entered using the moving walkways over the Rialto Bridge entrance, then we walked through the Grand Canal Shoppes while admiring the indoor gondola ride. At the other end of the shopping mall we rode an escalator down into the Palazzo where we played some more games.

We next headed to the Wynn, we admired the outdoor fountains , and walked through the shopping esplanade and admired the Rolex store. We toured the Wynn casino, and observed somebody playing craps for $10,000 stakes. We played some at the Wynn just to say we had been there,and while playing a slot host came up to us and issued us player cards on the spot, and gave us each $10 free play. Great, friendly service.

After the Wynn, we went to Treasure Island (TI) to watch Sirens of TI,the free show in front of the casino. It used to be a pirate battle between two pirate ships, but now its one pirate ship, and the other boat is full of sirens, better known as showgirls. It starts with one pirate going alone in a rowboat being captured by the sirens, then the big pirate ship arrives and they try to rescue the one pirate, a battle ensures with flame effects, and damage to the sirens ship. The pirates aren't so lucky as their ship sustains fatal damage and sinks. The pirates flee to the sirens ship and then its all sexy dance numbers. The show ends with fireworks and the pomise that the pirate's treasure awaits you inside.

After the show the large crowd stayed thick all the way through walking past the Mirage and finally thinned out by the time we got to Ceasar's Palace. We skipped that to, and we walked all the way into the Bellagio but decided not to play. We eventually just left the Bellagio and returned to our hotel. Early morning tomorrow.

The next morning we were out of our rooms by 9:30 and we briefly thought about an offer of a $45 limo ride to the airport,but eventually turned it down for a $12 taxi van ride. You might remember the ride from the airport to the hotel cost twice as much. We arrived at the airport and despite web check in working fine on the way to Vegas, the web check in and the self serve check in kiosks in the airport refused to check me in. I had to wait in a long slow "problem resolution" lane for the one human check in person. She was able to check me in right away, but could not offer any reason for why I could not check my self in. We wound up waiting some more for the wheelchair escort as they were short staffed. That all balanced out as the wheelchair escort meant not having to wait in the security line.

Eventually we got to the airport food court just in time to have enough time to eat and get back to our gate. Our flight home also did not have the personal entertainment systems, and was pretty uneventful. I did try a Chicken Gyro for $8, which was served cold and by far not the best gyro I ever had. When we got to Cincinnati we got a wheelchair, but they said there would be a wait for an escort, so I pushed. We had no trouble claiming bags, then we headed home.

And that ends Vegas Week 09.

That should be all the trip reports for the year.

See ya next year!

TR: KIngs Island Fall Tri-Fecta (10/17, 10/18, 11/1)

TR: Kings Island Fall Tri-Fecta
Mason, OH
October 17, 18 and November 1.

Okay: the usual rules of a Kings Island trip report apply, you have ready my gushings about Diamondback, and I have described most of the rides. So a little less on the verbosity unless something is special.

This report covers three 'short' visits to Kings Island I took in the fall.

October 17

I wasn't really planning on going to the park today, but I was up in the Fields Ertel area anyway, and despite the chill in the air, I figured I was only 1 exit from the park so I dropped by. I arrived at the park around 2:30 and my first order of business was renewing the season pass. I wasn't sure how many more visits to the park I would get this year, so I decided to stop past the season pass center now. In 2009 I had a gold pass, and looking forward to my 2010 park plans, I figured a platinum pass was the right level, so I took my gold pass to the window and asked about pricing. The park had run an unbelievably good deal on gold passes, on selected days they were only $65, but the platinum pass stayed firm at $145, this means you need to plan on at least 2 visits to other Cedar Fair parks to justify the upgrade.

I walk right up to an open window, and $145 later I have a platinum pass and she collects my 2009 gold pass for the renewal. I'm skeptical, but I go inside and I get a friendly camera operator for the photo shoot for my platinum pass. I ask him, and he tells me the 2010 pass will, of course, only work in 2010. Long story short, he gets his supervisor, who goes to the person who sold me my new pass to get my old pass back. Now I am ready to enter the park.

I breeze through security and enter the park, and pretty much head right to Diamondback. The ride had about a 20-25 minute wait, and I wait through the regular line since I did not see the single rider lane open. I get to the boarding platform, request and receive seat 16. At this the single rider in the now open SRL makes it clear he is a single so he too can score a ride in a prime seat. Seat 16 really is the best seat on the ride. Upon exiting I duck into the Single rider line, and I get to the front of what is essentially a walk on and promptly get rewarded with a ride in dull seat 10. I take one more ride through the normal waiting line, winding up in an acceptable seat and then head on to check out the rest of the park.

I get back to Beast and decide to take a ride. The line for Beast is about halfway down the long ramp between the top and middle queue houses, so it has a bit of a line but not much. I take a seat towards the front of the train, and soon we are off. In the nice things department, I really like the flagpole they have added to the center of the turn out of the station, where all the support cables come together in the center of the turn, they have installed a flagpole with a United States flag, which really looks nice. They even have a lamp above the doghouse which shines down on it. That's a cool installation, actually I have noted several rides have flags now, most are of the stick flag variety mounted around the operators boooth, with some exceptions, Diamondback for instance has a full size flag on the inside roof overhang of the station neartest the operators booth. Okay, having gotten the niceties out of the way, the Beast ride was rough, sluggish, and all that work that went into smoothing out the helix was for naught, as it was roguh as ever. Why do I continue to ride on this overrated ride?

I take a quick look through the arcade, then head to Back Lot Stunt Coaster. I was pleasantly surprised to see the very first switchback just inside the entrance closed off so as to bypass the needless walk all the way down the hill to the queue house and back. What's even better is they weren't assigning seats, so I took a ride in the front seat, otherwise known as the only seat on the entire ride with appreciable airtime. I take my seat, lower the lapbar, then the bars release, and tehe operators do bar checks again, and the operator sets my bar looser than I had it, which is strange since this particular ride is usually staffed by operators who like to see just how far down they can push it, entirely arbitrarily as the guy next to you can have a bar much looser than yours but his is okay. It was nice though, getting those two airtime pops which come right before and after the subway stair drop. At least the lights on the police cars and the fire effects work in the show scene.

Out in front of the ride for Haunt they had a Wallandas promo doctored up so it said Fallandas, "Help him Fall!" closer eyes will note its sponsored by Shapiro!. The controversial celebrity death scene between Beast and Crypt was replaced by an American Idol parody scene "After Life Idol". I head up into Coney Maul, themed to be a carnival so tacky looking most cvarnival operators would be offended. Cheap used-car-dealership stremaer pennants line the midways on both sides and give the place a suitably tacky look. Sideshow canvas advertises dubious sideshow acts. And look at the phony snack bars, selling stuff like "Funeral Cakes" Just for good measure, I take a ride on Vortex, the line is just back to the Troika exit, which means only about 15 minutes. Exiting Vortex, I am curious about the big white tent I see setup in the area.

I don't make many stops in the area, I dod look and see that the X-Base rides are, as usual very crowded. I happen to be walking past Monster just starting a load cycle with almost nobody in line. I can't pass that up, and get rewarded with a Monster ride that not only has the usual pops of airtime, but I had a car that spins a bit more than the usual Monster car. All in all a good ride, even if the loading proceudre insures it takes time to ride. I also stop at Racer, and take a back seat ride in Red Racer, as Blue Racer is already closed for the season. Racers line was just down to the bottom of the ramp. Man, I could see Racer just trying to be a good coaster, it had suggestions of airtime and all.

Next I head into Oktoberfest, and take a walk on ride on Advneture Express. Not a whole lot to report here, as Advneture express was running pretty consistant and all. Looking at my watch its about 5:40 and I could use a bite to eat. I head to the International Restaurant to check out the Fright Feat. Uppon arriving at the International Restaurant I learn I have to exit the park, go to the ticket windows, and get a ticket for the meal.

So I run out get my ticket and run back in, so now I have the $13.99 prepaid meal ticket, and I get in the steadlily building line for the Fright Feast. By 5:50 the line is back to the Kings Island Theater. The staff takes those of us in the back half of the line around to the back door of International Restaurant and admits us through the staff entrance. On our way in they exchange our meal ticket for a front-of-the-line pass to Slaughter House, one of the new Haunts. I get into International Restaurant and it is midly decorated for the season with some black fabric on the walls, fake cobwebs and the like. I've seen fast food places decorate for the season better. The advertisements showed the buffet setup in coffins, but that wasn't to be. What was to be is probably the most German meal one could get in the park! Recall, we are talking about the park that has an entire section themed to Oktoberfest, has a building called the Festhaus, and yet they seem to be trying to strip away every thing even remotely german about it. For example, there is nothing inherently german on the entire menu in Oktoberfest, with the exception of beer, and even then its not German beer.

I go down the buffet line, and whats this, hot german potato salad, brats and kraut, roast chicken, pull pork BBQ, cole slaw, mac and cheese, german chocolate cake, and the obligatory pumpkin pie. I have a nice german meal with brats, kraut, sides, a pull pork sandwich, and both deserts of course. The meal even included soft drinks. I stuck around even after finishing up eating to see if there was any kind of program, but then after figuring their wasn't I exited out the front doors to International Street.

I note my front of the line pass for Slaughter House mentined in the fine print it is to be redeemed by 6:45 at the Kings Island Theater. I walk over to the Kings Island Theater, but first walk through front gate gifts. Front gate gifts has a bag sale going on, as in buy a bag for $10 and take whatever you can fit into the bag. I'm glad they let you look first, becuase the offerings in the store are almost entirely garbage that even Goodwill would probably throw away.

Okay, Kings Island theater, and Don Helbig is there meeting people under a Fright Feat sign. From there every couple minutes a staff member comes to escort people down to Slaughterhouse. Slaugherhouse takes place in what is normally the Stunt Crew Grill. Normally you line up for Slaughterhouse coming from the side nearest Delirium, but they escort you to a seperate line that is setup coming from the Invertigo side. Not that it matters since they must open it at 6 or so, and take people as they come down from Fright Feast, I'm thinking the impact on regular Haunt visitors is close to nothing. Careful observation will note that the Slaughterhouse is a bit bigger than Stunt Crew Grill, and I doubt you even go into the building part of it where the service lines are, instead the haunt takes place on the two covered outdoor dining patios and the area in front of the stand. The entrnace way is setup to look like abutcher shop, you go in, they tell you the rules, then you enter the haunt. The bad thing about going this early is it is too light out in the outdoor non covered portions. They do make good use of strobes and like most of their offerings is more focusees on blood and gore and less on pure scares. It seems their most common scare is baging on a wood wall, or opening a small sliding panel, shouting at you, and then slaming it back closed. That's not to say Slaughterhouse doesn't have its moments, it has the furnace from Phantom Theatre, it has a room where you walk through and car starts up and moves a couple feet towards you with horn and lights going. If it weren't for the obvious safety barrier that might be effective. I noted the pig pens in the middle of the maze that were to house real pigs instead house plush animal pigs. Towards the end they have a buthers counter scene where the butcher is working on a body with a meat cleaver that looks just like one you see at the very start of the maze, leading you to wonder if you are going in circles. The last stunt is one of those air cushion walls where you have to squeeze between two air cushions, its similar to, but not as effective as a similar stunt used at EnterTRAINment Junction. Not a bad haunt, really.

I nnext have time to high tail it all the way to Urgent Scare which is in the Action FX Theater. I get there before 7 and the line is backed up to the old Flight Commander entrance, but I have a sneaking suspicion the main queue area for it isn't open yet. My suspicion is confimed when right around 7, we go on a nice steady walk and when the dust settles I am to the part of the Acton FX queue where it splits into two lanes. Only one lane was open of course,a nd the actors were using the other lane as a walkways. Urgent Scare is a haunt with a story, the story last year was a plaque or virus was running rampant through the town being spread by a tainted energy drink. This year they dropped the whole energy drink line and were openly calling it the Swine Flu causing the problems. The story is you have to get to the hospital before its too late. As you wait in the queue line, deranged 'patients' pace back and forth and medical equipment is strewen through the yard. The queue line forms the perfect "mob" heading to the hospital and a sound loop provides "rioting angry mob" sound effects.

When you get to the hospital, they first group you as normal, but then they only let you into the hospital lobby one at a time. Under the guise of being photographed for a visitors pass, they have you go in, stand on the X, and the camera is rigged with a special effect set to activate a few seconds before the shutter, in the hopes of getting your reaction. You are then handed the usual pink Souvenier Photo card. They then escort you into the "elevator" where you wait for the rest of the people in your group to get their photos taken. It sounds like a time drag, but they really have it set to military like precision, and I betcha the idea is that instead of waiting 2 minutes before groups, they take 8 peopls photos one a a time 15 seconds each, and that way it actually seems like the line is constantly moving. The "elevator" is a room with a vibrating floor, then you get off the elevator, and go through the doctors office, very creepy doctor. Then you go through the inside part of the haunt where you go through the haunted hospital, guts and gore are the name of the game here. Imagine everything you never wanted to see in a patient room, they probably have it was you walk through the wards. The haunt takes place in the side of Action FX theater nearest Vortex, and continues along the exit hallway in the building, through the arcade, and then all the way up the long exit path. When you exit the hospital (and go outisde) they twll you you have to be decontaminanted after going throught the hospital, and they, make you walk through a water curtain, on a 39 degree night. I'm so happy I had a hood. The exit ramp is setup more like making your way through the military blockade. Oh, and the bungee person got me agan this year, as they moved the location of the person that literally drops in on you from bungee cords. Once you get back up to near Vortex exit where they have a tent setup with the In-Haunt Photo stand.

Urgent Scare is, I think, one of the best haunts here. It has a story, it has a mix of good old fashioned scare along with your guts and gore, the fact it is one of the longest haunts at haunt helps, and even with the line, I was able to make it down to the all new Cutthroat Cove by 7:40. I should have spent my time at Trail of Terror, which is also one of my favorite haunts there. I'd say Urgent Scare and Trail of Terror are my two favorites, though Sluahgerhouse isn't bad. Cutthroat Cove is Redbeards Revenge under a new name. I knew that going in, but though Redbeards wasn't too bad, and with a new location they might have improved it.

Redbeards former home was the mining company, and Back Porch Stage. Both of these were removed this year as they are now the Diamondback queue area. Cutthorat Cove is setup at Outer Hanks, so I first expected Outer Hanks to be closed, but it is in fact not only open, but it has a Haunt overlay as One Eyed Jacks. You enter Cutthroats through the Viking Fury exit. The Viking Fury Exit combines with a new paved walkway that runs behind the airbrush shop to form the queue area for Cutthroats with the actual haunt not starting until you reach the Outer Hanks dining patio. They have lined part of the queue area with nautical code of signals flags, and a quick check revealed they just strung them up in alphabetical order instead of cleverly hiding a message. I guess this, and that big disused Viking ship count as nautical queue theming. It appears they have built the haunt on the back part of the dining patio nearest the lake, which means they can still keep a sizeable part of the dining patio open for those who want to eat or drink at the bar. The main problem here is there is no cover over the haunt, and with the dining patio lights on, a good portion of the haunt is brightly lit. There is entirely too much light here. They used ofggers to great effect in a couple places, but it was, as advertised Redbeards Revenge relocated. They made good use of the sound system in the area for creepy music, but all in all, I have to give Cutthroat Cove bad marks. It exits out directly into Lt. Dan's Back Porch Bar. Care for an after Scare Cocktail?

They had opened Cutthroat Cove a bit early, so I was able to exit, and get down to Showplace by 8:07 and so caught most of Hot Blooded. I found it to be nowhere near as engaging as Dead Awakening. Okay, girls kind of scantily dressed, okay, but I just got back from Vegas, so my expectations may have been a bit more than a family park can offer. The rain wall special effect in the back of the set was nice, but overplayed. The small scale pyro was neat, and very loud. The show just didn't do it for me and seemed to be more similar to Ghouls Gone Wild then Dead Awakenings. After the show, I went back to Diamondback for a few more rides, but by this time the queue was entirely full, and single rider line was back to the cell phone display. Ugh. I took two more rides though, at about 45 minutes apeice.

By that time, I had to head out. I realaized how cold it was when every stand that had coffee or cocoa was insanely busy. I'll just wait till I get home. Once I got home, I was contacted by Rideman who wanted to go up to the park the next day, but he wasn't ging till late, so I coudl still do church, brunch and that kind of thing.

October 18

As mentioned, I started the day like any normal Sunday, went through the Sunday routine. Then I sat and waited for Rideman. Rideman had inidcated he was going to take it easy in the morning, after all the park is open till midnight. To give you an idea, his text message asked "I'm finally going, do you still want to go" I'd say we arrived at the park around 4 pm, but to my mind any park time is better than no park time!

We pulled into the lot, and found a nice parking space in the first row of general parking and headed into the park. It probably won't surprise you that we beelined it right for Nick Universe, you thought I was going to say Diamondback! The idea isn't as strange as it sounds as we knew Nick was closing at 5pm, and it might be our last chance to see it as Nick. We took a quik ride on Fairly Odd Coaster and confirmed that while it is the best running wood coaster in the park, it is also still braked. We witnessed an attendant tell an adult that one of their children (family of like six) could not ride for height, so instead of having the one child wait, she made the other 4 all get off. I don't quite get that.

We then took a quick walk through Nick on our way to Diamondback. We got to Diamondback, and found it to be a total walk on. You're telling me the park's newest ride is a walk on!??! We walked right on to seat 16.. What a great ride. We took a few more Diamondback rides before doing the customary tour of the park.

On our first pass around the park we skipped Beast, but took a ride on Back Lot Stunt Coaster. It too was a near walk on, so we went right for the front seat. Recall just the day prior I rode the ride with a loose lap bar that the operator set. This time I got the ride operator who wanted to see just how far it could go down, not just till it touches, but how far they could physically lower the bar. That was just uncalled for. At least it gives a fun if short ride.

We next headed around and took the customary ride on Vortex, nothing much to report here. We started heading back towards the front of the park when we took a walk back to X-Base. Ok, its cold, maybe all the people are in Flight of Fear. Nope - walk on conditions here as well. You may recall I had trouble with Mr. Freeze, so I was hesitant about even trying to ride Flight of Fear. I took my usual spot on the left side on Row 1, and was rejected. However, the ride operator suggested I move to Row 2, which I did actually changing stations on the operator side of the platform, recall it is a two stop loading ride. Okay, they were able to get me seated in Row 2. At least I got to ride Flight of Fear, its a shame its so hard for me to get on the ride since it is actually a really fun ride, even if they do brake it to a full stop, and with the delay in the station I caused don't tell me it was a blocking issue. At the unload platform, my belt would not release and Rideman had to perform martial arts on it for it to release.

Okay, next up was Firehawk, which Rideman declined as he was not suitably equipped. Now there were 4 people in front of me in the queue when I joined the line. Sounds like I would get a a quick in and out ride, right. Wrong, Rideman clocked it at 15 minutes. Most of that time was spent with me strapped into the back seat looking at Rideman with both of us gesturing "What's taking so long?" Oh well, I at least got a great ride on my second favorite coaster in the park. I'm flying, oh and vertical-loop-on-your-back!

After Firehawk, we decided that Rideman needed to get his jacket out of his car before the No Re-entry policy starts at 7pm. We noted that Scrambler was running during Haunt for the first time in years. So this year we gain Scrrambler back but lost Viking Fury. I suppose the bigger change is Flight Deck is now open during Haunt. Rideman got his jacket and we headed to Invertigo.

Wait, this can't be right, a walk on for Invertigo! We again walked right on to an end seat, the end facing Congo Falls and took a quick hihg G intense ride. Our ride included an extra show as I got a glimpse of the flag retreat out in front of the park while we were climibng lift 2. It seems the park is raising the flag in the morning, and taking it down at sundown, very traditional, but only for the flag out in the former tram circle in front of the park. That particular pole is even flood lit, and the still keep the flood lit at night.

After Invertigo, we head to Son of Beast. Okay, you probably know Son of Beast is closed for the forseeable future, but they are using the Son of Beast queue for Flight Deck during Haunt. What they have done basically is cut an opening in the very back of the Son of Beast queue nearest Flight Deck, so you start of going through the Son of Beast queue, then when you get to the end of it, you cross over the exit lane, and go down a newly paved connector to the regular Flight Deck entrance, then you enter Flight Deck as normal at that point. Actually using the Son of Beast queue is probably unnecessary but it helps with crowd control as at one point you have the queue for Club Blood, the exit for Flight Deck and the queue for Flight Deck all right next to each other, so putting Flight Deck queue in the Son of Beast queue helps allievate some of that congestion, and allows another coaster to be open during Haunt to take Sonny's place. I did not not only is the Son of Beast entrance and exit fenced over, but the theming in the tunnel, as little as it was into the area has been completely painted over. I didn't look at the Flight Deck side to see if they painted over the big American flag mural. When we got to Flight Deck we sat down in the front seat of the back car, and rode for like 7-10 times straight without even getting out of the seat. I didn't even undo my seatbelt the whole time. Marathon going on on Flight Deck. At one point we were the only two on the ride. What was more amazing is they were still running both trains.

When we tired of Flight Deck, we were going to head to Delirium, but due to a rider who was so excited they couldn't contain themselves, we decided to pass it for later. We passe Sling Shot and I had to think hard about the $5 special before I finally declined it. It was even a walk on at only $5. We opted instead for a back seat walk on ride on Adventure Express. Another steady performer nothing too bad to mention here. I noticed the game booth that was a kids jacobs ladder, then a Guitar Hero game is now a soccer themed skill game.

After Adventure Express we took a ride on Racer, and with unbelievable luck had a walk on front seat ride. They even let us ride with only 1 click on the lap bars, it was shaping up to be a great Racer ride, too bad Racer failed to deliver the goods. We continued our way around and stopped off at Zephyr for a swing ride in which we were the only two riders. Are you noticing a trend?

Rideman pointed out to me the feature fo the gross "Funeral Cakes" stand I had missed, which was a skeleton , using a urinal, next to the soft drink machine. I alsways had my doubts about certain citrus sodas. We noticed Troika was not open for Haunt, and since we had already done Vortex and Back Lot, we decided to finish up the open part of the coaster collection with a ride on Beast. The good news is it was only a train or two station wait for Beast, the bad news is the two click rule was in play. The new flag was still there, and the ride was for the most part dark with very minimal lighting on, which is a better night ride than this thing has given in years as far as asthetics go. The bad news is its still running slow and rough. Let's head to a true night ride.

We head back to Diamondback and proceed to take numerous Diamondback rides, mostly in the back seat. We must have ridden Diamondback several times for an hour or two. once we even took a ride in the front seat, seeing as it was also a walk on. The operators commented "Welcome to Diamondback, proving once again Kings Island is better than the Magic Kingdom" When asked how that is, he said "You just waited a total of 30 seconds for a front seat ride on our newest, biggest coaster, at the Magic Kingdom you wait 90 minutes to ride the elephant ride!"
Low temperatures, lower wind chills, and the very open front seat provided a very cold ride experience, "Welcome back Diamondback riders, how was your freezing cold ride" On one ride we were cuationed to protect our ears going past Showplace, and sure enough when we passed Showplace it was the exact right time for Hot Blooded's pyro features. Yes, that was loud. We rode Diamondback until we were just about ready to leave the park. We even stopped of at Starbucks for a quick warm up. We took in a tour of the Haunt displays in theInternationsl Street store windows, and the Phantom Theater characters on the Bandstand.

After Starbucks, we realized we hadn't ridden Delirium, a situation we needed to fix. We headed to a walk on Delirum, but not only a walk on Delirum a Delirum in Party Mode. Basically the rules were whever the ride stopped, if you wanted off, get off, if you wanted on, get on, no need to exit until you have had your fill. We took 3 Delirium rides in that set, and both swear the last one was significantly shorter than the other two. I labeled the ride experience "Invigorating", Rideman said "So, that's what you call it" The ride operators said something like "Welcome to Delirum, we are going to swing you 137' in the air at speeds up to XXX, which is going to feel great in this weather, while spinning you at XXX rpm, which is also gonna feel really good in this weaher!"

After Delirium, we were basically done with the park and headed to Waffle House, but I stopped off for a walk in haunt, Slaugher House with no queue, and only 3 of us in our group. I mainly wanted to see if it was better in the dark, it was slightly. Then it was our of the park and to Waffle House for some Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Topped hashbrowns to which we added Cassa De Waffle picante sauce (like a salsa) and hot sauce, oh yeah we also had drinks and cheeseburgers. Its the Coaster Enthusiast after hours dinner of champions!

November 1, 2009 - Closing Day

This was another day I really hadn't planned on going, but I just couldn't let my final chance to ride Diamondback for nearly 6 months go away! I got the the park at 5:15, which was really late considering it closed at 7pm. I entered the park and started with taking my final ride on Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle. I failed to win the Twitter contest for last rides, but when I arrived at the ride, the line was only 5-10 minutes long, if that. Now Scooby has been getting lots of complaints this year (even from me) for non-working Fright Lights, and inoperablt stunts. I swear they decided to have the ride go out on a high note. I think every effect was working, even some I haven't seen work in several visits. I even had a Fright Light that worked the entire ride.

After me Scooby ride, I met up with Don and we headed to Diamondback. We proceeded to enjoy the benefits of a Diamondback with maybe a 5-10 minute wait for the next hour and a half. I think we scored 7 rides in that time, with 5 of those being in that wonderful back seat, 1 in row 15, which may as well be the back seat, and 1 in row 2, which may as well be the front seat. What a great way to end out the season, with the airtime filled goodness of Diamondback,. That also means I began and ended my season on the same ride. We declined the traditional Last Rides for ACE offer on Beast, I mean why take 1 ride on the rough Beast, when in the same time as the ERT we could get two back seat rides on the smooth as silk, and airtime filled Diamondback. On one ride I looked at the group assembled for Beast final ride, and I doubt there were 20 people in that plaza, I recall in years past that whole plaza would be packed with people for final ride.

After the park closed, we managed to be the last customers at Starbucks, and then did the customary final night meat up at Culvers after the park closed.

So long, it's been a great season. With this my coaster trip reports are done for 2009.

I do have a non-coaster trip to Vegas, not sure how I want to handle that one. There may be a trip report, then again there might not.

TR: Fall Affair at Holiday World (9/26/09)

TR: Holiday World
Santa Claus, IN
September 26, 2009

Fall Affair is the annual Coasterbuzz event at Holiday World. Flyers about it had been passed out at Holiwood Nights clear back in May, and we had pretty much decided we were a go then. That explains perfectly why Rideman and I were sweating bullets with last minute mail in registration. We had also planned to spend the night before at Halloween Haunt at Kings Island, but steady rainshowers and other issues prevented that from happening.

Halloween Haunt was part of the plan, as it would put Rideman in Cincinnati to spend the night, rather than Columbus, which would have allowed him an extra two hours sleep. He still took most of that time, which means we left for Holiday World already behind schedule. It was a pretty uneventful drive down, and we spent the time listening to, appropraitely enough, some episodes of the Coasterbuzz Podcast. In fact with just a fuel stop and a McDonalds run for breakfast, we were soon arriving in Santa Claus, IN just around 11:30.

When we arrived at the park, I showd Rideman the new parking lot access road, but we ignored it and headed to the Raven lot. Upon looking at the Raven lot, we decided the closer spaces might actually be over in Legend. We moved to the Legend lot and got a parking space very near the tunnel under the road. Soon thereafter we headed to the main gate. In the past Coasterbuzz has had their own check in booth, but I guess we missed that with our late arrival, so instead we checked in at Guest Relations. It's the standard Holiday World event procedure, we recieved a covention style plastic nametag, and a FUNvelope filled with an admission ticket, meal ticket, coupon sheet, and event schedule. This was soon followed by the traditional running all the stuff we don't need right now out to the car.

Okay, now we are really inside the park, and head for Raven. We headed right up to the Raven station, and when we peeked inside, Rideman indicated he thought lines would not be a problem. Ah, two people in line for the front seat, and the rest of the rows are empty. We of course took the opportunity to start the day off with a back seat ride on Raven. With only one train on, it goes up the lift hill at a normal rahter than a slow crawl. The ride itself was a nice start to our Holiday World day.

We then headed towards Legend, and as we were about near Scarecrow Scrambler, we saw Will Koch and stopped and chatted. I mentioned how much different this was than the crowd that was here back in August. We left us with a hearty "Enjoy your whole park ERT!"

We headed to the Legend station and where is the love for Legend. We head right for the front seat. While we ride in the front seat we can see lots of yellow markings which may suggest an off season improvement plan. For whatever reason, Legend was not running at its finest today, which runs counter to my other three days in the park so far this season.

After Legend, we did not run right for Voyage, instead we took the traditional once-around the park flat ride tour. We started with Hallowsings, then headed to Eagle's Flight. I have been getting the feeling that I've been doing something right on Eagle's Flight because the ride feels as if I should be getting action, but alas no satisfying KERCHUNK from the ride. I also figure we must be running slightly ahead of a large group as the empty Eagles' Flight queue was about a third full when we left the ride, mind you I think thats about one cycle.

From Eagle's Flight we rode Revolution, then headed to Holidog's Fun Town. WE were walking around looking at Fun Town for no apparent reason. While back there I got the wild hair to go down the tallest, twistiest slide they had to offer. They have a large tree fort like play structure with numerous activities. Following the signs, I remove my shoes and contemplate how to get up to the top of the turret. There is a mini rock wall section, or a ladder followed by a cargo net bridge, it seems there is no easy staircase up. We conjectured this may be exactly to discourage overweight unathletic types like me from using the equipment. I opt for the ladder, then the cargo net bridge, as I enter the turret, Rideman reassures me he has a phone and can call somebody if I get hopelessly stuck. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Once inside the turret, its a series of mini ladder/stairs up to the top. Not the easiest climb, but nothing technically challening either. Now I am at the summit, I climb into the big metal twisty slide tube, push off, go a few feet, and then stop. Hmm, I would have thought weight would be to my advantage on a sliding board. This is sad, but I basically had to push myself down the slide. That was so disapointing. At least I didn't get stuck, or cause a scene or anything like that.

So, I make my retreat out of Holidogs Fun Town. We skip the Star Spangled Carousel and the Liberty Launch and head for Rough Riders. Rough Riders is a nice bumper car ride that has way too many cars on the floor. We still have to wonder about the pickle barrel size "Soy Sauce" sontainer we saw in the maintenance room of Rough Riders, particulalry since we can't think of one item on Holiday World's menu that you would even remotely want to put soy sauce on.

From Rough Riders, we take a rare no wait ride on Paul Revere's Midnight Ride to confirm that it is still one of the best Spider rides out there. And again, we still seem to be just ahead of the crowd. At this time we cut through the Alamo and head to Thanksgiving. We come to Voyage and get up to the station and whats this, we have to wait. It seems the park was only running a single train on Voyage. On one hand I can't blame them when the line doesn't even reach 15 minutes single train, but that is a long time between dispatches.

After our first Voyage ride, we go and take the obligatory rides on Turkey Twirl and Gobbler Getaway, and then we went and took some photos of Pilgrims Pluge, we did not ride it because we didnt want to get wet. Remember that, it comes into our story later.

Formaliites out of the way, it was time to ride Voyage, we kept riding Voyage until about 30 minutes prior to park close. During that time we rode mostly in the heavenly airtime filled back seat, and even took the chance at a short wait front seat ride. In short we rode Voyage numerous times, an dit is still the greatest wood coaster ever built.

The park was slated to close at 5:00 so at that time we started heading to the front. Along the way we stopped off at Legend for another ride. Now Legend was running a single train, and we saw the train come back empty. There was no real reason to send an empty train except as bally for the ride. "Yes, we are open!" No love I tell you.

After Legend, we grabbed a quick ride on Scarecrow Scrambler before finsihing up the regular park day with a couple rides on Raven. After Raven we wash up and head to Kringles Banquet Hall. The banquet hall has all the charm of a church social hall, maybe even less so. Maybe youth camp mess hall. It has even less charm today as the side with the christmas tree was blocked off by a room divider.

Now, you know you are at a coaster event when, the ticket says dinner is from 5:30-6:30, you arrive at 5:25 and are almost LAST in line. Luckily they did have some sausage pizza, chips, pepsi, and phudge for us. While we were eating they were talking about the really nasty rainstorm heading right for the park. Soon, the announced they were dispensing with the previously planned program for the dinner hour, that instead of the Coasterbuzz stlye progressive ERT where you move from one ride to another as a group, that all three wood coasters would be open for the entire ERT, and that instead of 6:30, the ERT starts right NOW! Now being 5:45, they had to compete with the Will/Pat prerecorded close announcement. Then they had to stress to people not to scarf down your food as people were starting to do. As a bonus the park even passed out free ponchos. Is this the most courteous park or what?

Owing to ERT starting at 5:45, they hadn't fully cleared the park yet. Not a problem, they directed everybody towards Raven, and then had an event badge check to make the turn from Christmas into Haloween. We took a ride or two on Raven where Jeff Putz was trying out is nifty HD camera setup, then we stopped by Legend as a formality. We could feel a few light drops riding Legend. We knew it was time to high tail it to Voyage.

We did get a few Voyage rides in before the rains started coming down. Ouch that first rain ride stung a little bit, and it wasn't even raiing hard then. The walk down the exit ramp we played avoid the sudden down pour as we exited the ride, then decided to wait in the station for shelter. We saw one train dispatch into the pouring rain, then we saw it come back a few minutes later with soaked riders.

What happened next boardered on insanity. We know a rain ednduced Voyage ride is not to be missed, so we grab an available seat towards the back of the train. Yes, thats right, the rain is pouring down like the end of the world, and we are BOARDING the coaster train. Did we put on the free ponchos the park offered, of course not, what chance do you really give those things of helping in this kind of rain.

They locked the train, Will and Paula looked at the proceedings in sheer amazement and amusement at what we were voluntarily going to subject ourselves to. They dispatch the train. What followed were 3 minutes of absolute insanity. Oh the pain of being shot with thousands of BB's, but oh the joy of flying over the hills at "Devil May Care" speeds. I've referred to some past Voayge rides, like the ones in May as being insane but this takes the cake. What's more insane, we return to the station and there is nobody waiting for our seat. Oh well, we are already this drenched, may as well do it again. Can't get any wetter, right? Yes, we were the same people who didn not ride Pilgrim's Plunge becuase we didn't want to get wet.

After the second downpour ride, the park pulled the plug and announced it was closing. Okay, the park may not have stayed open till the advertised 7:30, but we still got a full hour of ERT, with an ending that will be remembered for a long time. Better yet those insane downpour rides were in the dark. We had it all.

Now we get to make our way back to the parking lot in the pouring rain, watch the pools of water forming on the walkways. Then, we had a light rain all the way home to Cincinnati, others reported they had storms, but I think that was becuase they were in such a rush to get to their cars. We were literally one of the last cars out of the lot.

A fuel stop, and a Steak N Shake stop then I headed home, and Rideman headed to Columbus.

Next Up: A Kings Island Fall Trifecta TR to end the coaster season, and a Vegas non-coaster TR.

Watch for them!

TR: Coasterville Con 2009 - Kings Island (8/9/09)

Trip Report: Kings Island
Mason, OH
August 9, 2009

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Welcome to the final day of Coasterville Con 2009. When we last left, we had just arrived home very late from St. Louis. As such, today we slept in a bit, then I printed Eric an e-Ticket for Kings Island ($30), then we had lunch at Skyline Chili. (If you're not from the Cincinnati area, you wouldn't understand the need to have Skyline Chili as soon as possible whenver you return to the area)

Then we headed up to Kings Island, now being a Kings Island TR, I'm going to be nowhere near as verbose as I have been with the other reports in this series. Suffice to say, we arrived at the park, used my parking pass, and headed inside.

Once inside, we headed to Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle. I was a bit concerned when I saw a line stretching out onto the drawbridge, after all our luck with crowds this week has not been the best. I was surprised when we got inside and they had routed the queue the shortest way possible. Unfortunately, about a fourth of the way into our ride, the guns in our car totally failed, which meant my attention was focused on the fact that not many of the rides animated stunts were operable. Not a good sign.

We left Scooby and headed to Diamondback. This would be Eric's first time on Diamondback, and I think he took an instant liking to it. It's just that much better than any other ride Kings Island has installed in quite some time. We took a couple rides on Diamondback before continuing our tour.

We decided to skip Beast, and then got into a line that had just stretched back to the queue house for Backlot Stunt Coaster. The ride was running about as best it can these days, and Eric seemed to like it, so we are doing good at showing him the things that have changed with Kings Island since he has left the area. After Backlot Stunt Coaster we took a few minutes to take a ride on Shake, Rattle and Roll (HUSS Troika), I mean they were just loading it, so why not?

After Troika, we skipped Vortex and headed to X-Base, or as I like to refer to it, as Long Line Base. We deicded not to wait 45-60 minutes for Flight of Fear, particulalry after we just barely fit into Mr. Freeze two days prior, but decided to head to Firehawk instead. Eric had ridden Firehawk before, of course, during it's X-Flight days at Geuaga Lake. Of course, it never had a line there, here it was posting 45 minutes. We were surprised to even see it open since there had been a fatality on it the day prior, but that was rulled to be natural causes and not the ride's fault. The queue maze was almost full, it was hot, and we noticed the Firehawk crew was really promoting drinking ice water (not soft drinks, not powerade, drink water people). We decided we would take a refreshment run out to the car right after our ride. The queue was moving surprisingly swiftly and we had just reached the final switchback when the ride went down for about 15-20 minutes. Almost eveybody had bailed, leaving just about 1 trainload left in line. We had just started to bail when they started cycling test trains. So we stayed in line and took a Firehawk ride. Still a great coaster, and when we exited we noted we had waited 45 minutes. Boy, that crew is good, they even factor downtime into the wait sign.

From Firehawk, we go to the car for a refrehment run by way of a tour of the gift shops, then reenter the park and start on the other side. We go to Invertigo, take one look at the line, and head the other way. Drop Tower is a tight fit for me, so we didn't even try it, and the test seat on Delirum wasn't kind to Eric. Son of Beast was closed for the season, of course, and we just didn't feel like taking the long trek just for Flight Deck. We soon bailed on Action Zone and headed into Oktoberfest.

In Oktoberfest we took the usual no wait ride on Adventure Express, and while waiting to board, reached Rideman who would join us for the rest of the day. While waiting for Rideman, we wen tand got the Racer ride in, knowing Rideman does not like Racer. Actually, after having just ridden great wooden coasters in three parks, Racer was a real let down.

Having collected Rideman, we went to the back of the park and scored that ride on Vortex, nothing special here, move along, as well as another ride on Backlot Stunt Coaster. After that let down at Racer, we skipped Beast and headed straight to Diamondback. Once we arrived at Diamondback, we pretty much stayed there riding repeatedly util the park closed. We did take one restroom break in that time, and noticing a near walk on for Reptar, took a ride on that. I'm still kind of amazed I fit on Reptar. But after Reptar, it was back to Diamondback until park close.

After the park closed, we made the real run through the gift shops, then out to the parking lot. We decided to decline a dinner invitation with Rideman as we needed to do some shopping so that Eric was ready to head back home wiht all the grocery items you just can't get in the south. After that we picked up some Donato's pizza which we took home and ate.

Andso ends Coasterville Con 09.

Next up: Fall Affair at Holiday World

Watch for it!

TR: Coasterville Con 2009 - St. Louis Gateway Arch (8/8/09)

Trip Report: St. Louis Gateway Arch
St. Louis, MO
August 8, 2009

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Last night we pulled into a hotel that we thought might be in a more upscale neighborhood based on the cars we saw. We kind of slept in today, pushing check out time to the limit. While taking our bags out to the car, we noticed two nice RV's in the hotel parking lot, and laughed, I thought the reason for a nice big RV was to not have to stay at hotels.

We left the hotel and headed towards the interstate and came across a shopping mecca, shops lining both sides of the street but set back aways, with a row of restaurants lining the sidewalks. I mean nice looking shopping centers, where even the fast food places look nice. We stopped to get some supplies at Target, then had some lunch at Culvers before heading on. We kept driving down the road between the shopping centers looking for the interstate, then when we got to the end of the shopping district the road just sort of dumps you out onto the interstate without much fanfare.

Okay, we are now heading towards St. Louis, when all of a sudden the interstate we are on is closed for construction, and we take a surprisingly well marked detour. The detour, I suspect takes you along one of the beltways to another one of the interstates going through St. Louis. When they say road work, we looked down as we went over on the overpass, and you could not see road, just tons of construction equipment and maybe a dirt road bed. Serious work going on there. We were glad to also see the turns on the detour were well marked all the way into downtown. We exited down by downtown, and following the instructions on the Arch brochure, you go forwards a block or two, then make a left to cross over the interstate, which sets you up to look at the arch through a nice greenspace, then another left, then a right and you come to the official parking area.

Parking for the St. Louis Arch is in a garage just north of the Arch itself. Parking here is reasonable, at $6, and I noteice an interesting tactic. Parking is a flat $6 if your stay is under 8 hours, and switches to a more expensive hourly scale if you park longer than that. The idea must be to keep parking reasonable for the tourists, while discouraging businessmen from parking here. We pull into the garage and score a "Pinch me I'm dreaming quality" parking space located right next to the stairs. We park, and just one flight of stairs up and we are on the obrder of the park that surrounds the Arch. We take a few seconds to get our bearings then start walking down a shaded trail cooled courtesy of nature's air conditioning and come out into the much warner green.

The Gateway Arch, or the Jefferson Memorial to Westward Expansion, or Gateway to the West, whatever you call it is a silver metallic 630' arch build in St. Louis's riverfront park. Sometimes referred to as a giant croquet wicket, an image not lost on the people who greated the American Roadtrip reality game this summer. Park enthusiasts sometimes imagine it as a giant SKycoaster, as some of the dual Skycoasters are described as looking like the St. Louis Arch. Eric wonders if anybody has ever flown a plane through the arch. Anyway the two legs of the arch appear to sink right down into the ground surrounded by a concrete pad that more or less serves as the front porch. Just inward of the two legs, ramps lead down under the green into the underground visitor center. Today, long lines stretched from the visitor center wrapped around the leg and continued into the park. Ugh.

I stand in line while Eric does some scouting work. While Eric is away, I notice the group ahead of us is already holding their tickets. I chat them up and learn the ticket sales are at a non descript carnival trailer along the edge of the parking garage right as you enter the park, had you used the garage elevators. Eric comes back and reports back that this is merely the line to get into the building. At about this point a park ranger points out there is almost no line at the entrance by the other leg.

Eric and I compare notes, and we head back to the parking garage, specifically to the carnival trailer, and I agree, nothing about it screams "Stop here for tickets" Let's see the tram to the top is $10, and we could bundle it with one or two movies, or a riverboat cruise. We decide on just the basic tram ride, and soon have tickets. As an advisory, the trailer is a credit card only operation. Okay, a check of watches reveals it to be about 1, our tickets are printed for 2:40, using their timed entry system. We take the time to return to our car to get some refreshments, a move I'm sure did not endear us to any of the people who saw us heading to the car and though they had just scored prime parking.

A bit later, we headed back up the stairs, down the shaded trail, and we headed over to the other leg of the arch. By this time the rangers had pretty much gotten the two lines evened out. For us the line streched back up the ramp and had just barely started to circle the leg of the arch. We heard somebody ask a ranger how long it would take, and he said about 30 minutes. The ranger knew what we was talking about as it took 30-40 minutes to get inside. The problem lies about halfway down the entrance ramp right after you go inside the doors. At that point they have installed, as they call it "An airport style security checkpoint". That isn't bad by itself, what is bad is they only have one metal detector and one baggage scanner at each of the two entrances. That and they have the system set so tight, you have to take off your belt, empty out your pockets, as well as do most of the other stuff you have to do at airports. At least they let you keep your shoes on.

Halfway down the ramp, there are three sets of double doors, what they have effectively done is make one set a dedicated exit, another set the dedicated entrance, and the middle set is barricaded off, but not locked, this is how the rangers get in and out. The middle set isn't that useful anyway because just inside the doors, the one wide ramp splits into two smaller ramps that go down ths side. This is to leave room in the center for the ramp that goes down from the visitor center to the tram station. Okay, once past security we head down the rest of the ramp into the visitors center. We can see another queue of people lining the ramps down to the tram station. I take a moment to ask the ranger maning the podium at the top of the ramp how early should we return, and he indicates we can line up 5 minutes before our assigned time slot. This means we have about an hour to explore.

The visitors center is a rectangular room situated between the two entryways from the park below. The entryways themselves flank the ramps down to the tram stations that take yo to the top of the arch. These entryways are in the center of the north and south sides of the visitor center. Set in the center of the room is the information desk, which is also your guest services. We stop at the visitor center to get park guides, I chuckle at the sign "Please take ONE guide per family" Yeah, right. Getting oriented to the vistor center, starting at the north entrance, you head east and you see the main gift shop, then the women's restroom, then you turn to go down the east wall. The east side is dominated by the ticketing center. I'm not sure what that trailer is out in the parking lot now, becuase this is a massive ticket center, with a sizeable queue waiting for it. Above the windows signs describe each attraction, tell you how much time to allow, and a little video screen by each attraction description tells you what time slot they are currently selling. I note the tram tour is up to 3:10, and says "Allow 60-90 minutes". Of interest sitting next to the ticket center is a mock up of a tram car. This is places here as a combination exhibit, photo opportunity, and a test seat. The capsules are incredibly small and compact, this will allow you to see if you can fit insdie and after getting inside if you have any claustrophobia issues. They should allow you to close the doors on the test car, that might really freak some people with claustrophobia out.

Anyway, continuing along from the ticket center, in the south east corner is the men's room, then on the southern side is another store, once which deals in stuff like coffee, cheese, candy, almost like an old time store. I don't quite gets its purpose here, but it was crowded inside.

Immediately to the west of the entrance ramps are two auditoriums, the one to the north is a regular theatre showing a documentary movie on the builidng of the arch, the one to the south is an IMAX theatre showing the Lewis and Clark IMAX movie. Either movie is $7 extra, and timed tickets are required. Heading west, a ranger station is tucked into a corner, and scattered in the visitor center are some drink vending machines. The machines sell 12 oz bottled water or 12 oz canned drinks for $1.25. That may seem high, but while we were there we saw the machines being restocked three times.

To the west of the visitor center is the museum. The museum is free, okay there is some fee to use the national park that was apparently included in our tram tour tickets, but they don't check those tickets on your way in, instead there is an honor box at the information desk for the fee. Fee + non enforcement = essentially free. Anyway the museum endeavors to tell the story of our exploration, starting with the indian lands that would form the west. It is actually a very large museum, and owing to the way you enter, it seems to spread out all around you from your commanding post by a statue of Jefferson in the entryway. I'm not sure if it is intentional but the as you go deeper into the museum you keep going down a few steps here and there, then you start going up stairs here and there. The effect is to create defined zones for exhibits, as well as to create seat walls. Starting at the northwest, the story starts with dealings with the indians, treaties and treaty medals, and non ashmedly saying the treaties would be less than genuine and meant to deceive the indians. Some parts of the museum even use audio animatronics to tell the story, sure there aren't Disney quality, but they are a nice touch. As you move to the south you move through history until by the time you hit the south end there is the token exhbit on space exploration. The museum includes many stuffed animals ("Please don't pet the animals, only real animals can regrow fur:), there is a conestoga wagon (The semi truck of the day), a nice size teepee, a big ships wheel. A military display of anicent battle flags and ammo. The room that has an exhibit on America's pastime, baseball, almost seems out of place. I noted they also have several ranger guided tours and activities going on. We explored the museum to while away the time until our tour.

At around 2:30 we headed to our assigned tram station ramp, that is the South ramp. We see the 2:30 group go in, and then all of us for the 2:40 group immediately form a line. The ranger takes immediate objection to this. "You can't line up here, its a fire hazard" Oky, so we turn to one another and okay we aren't in line we are mingling here. Somehow that is acceptable, even though its the same thing. The real fire hazard is effectively half the exits are blocked by security equipment. Okay, magically at 2:35 it isn't a fire hazard to form a line, I hate arbitrary BS rules. At 2:40 it is time for our tram ride, or so we think. What happens is a big game of Hurry Up and Wait.

At 2:40, tickets are torn and we are admitted to the upper half of the ramp. At this point, we stand still for about 10 minutes. (2:50) Then we advance again to the lower half of the ramp, at this point the rangers go down the line and start assigning seats to help faciliatate the boarding process. You are handed a plastic card that is color coded for your group, and has your seating assignment printed on it. This takes up part of the time, but not all of it as you essentially wait here another 10 minutes, then (3:00) we are admitted through the turnstile and told to move all the way into the next room. The room has some exhbiits on westward exploration obtensibly to help kill time so you don't realize you are still waiting in line. The main purpose of this room however, is that as you enter the room, they group you by family, post you for a grouo photo, and hand you a card on the hopes of selling you a souvenir photo on your way out. Again 10 minutes go by (3:10) and we are permitted to proceed, we are called to leave this room by capsule number, startng at 8 and working to 1. When your number is called, you can go down a set of stairs to the actual tram station. At the bottom, they collect the plastic boarding cards as you pass the operators console. Past the console there is a stairway running alonside the tram, the purprose of this is each capsule is a bit lower than the last. There is a railing down the center of the stairs, and you are asked to go down to your capsule but stay behind the center railing.

Once everybody is positioned. a ranger takes a microhone hidden next to car 4 and welcomes you. In addiiton to the safety spiel, you get the cliffs notes version of the history of the arch. Buiuilt in 1963, opened in 1967, design was the winner of hundered of designs submitted for a Westward expaqnsion monument. Key point was the designers alwways envisioned an observation area at the top, the problem was getting people up there, as no elevator system of the day could negotaite the curves the arch presented, as well as the fact the elevator system had to be totally concealed within the arch structure. A guy named Bowser created the present day capsule tram, a system described as part elevator, part train, part amusement park ride. Part elevator because it gets you to the top and back down, part train as there are eight capsules that are linked together and move like a train on a rail, and part amusement park ride becuase the capsules can sense when they are 5 or more degrees off level, and then will mechanically rotate to maintain a level upright position to within 5 degrees, similar in design to a ferris wheel. In fact I think the same basic system provides the mechanical leveling of the tubs on the London Eye. Anyway, they stress to us the fact the capsules are only 4' high. I knew when I looked at the doorway ahead of me it looked impossibly small, but I fugured there must be a trick, as I don't remember the doors being that small, but then last time I was in the arch was 20-25 years ago, I think. After the introductory speil, they show a short video and then the tram arrives.

I think they should mount a camera above the tram doors and capture the looks of the faces of the oncoming riders as they see first the outer doors in the solid wall open up, and then the inner doors of the capsules themselves open. When peole first see the teeny tiny capsules, with 5 rides crammed into them, the looks of shock and awe are all around. The people arriving get out and walk up the stairs on the side nearest the tram, then you are allowed to board. Be careful, there is no padding, and not only is the door less than 4' high, you have to step up into it. (Note, there are no ADA accomodations here) Once inside don't straighen up, instead move to one of the five seats. The first two are right next to the door and face inwards, the next two are at an angle, and the fith chair is along the back of the capsule and faces the doors. Once seated, the tub wall is your backrest, and you will be touching legs and arms with the person next to you. Forget personal space here. In effect the 5 chiars are set in a semi circle facing in. There are lights and speakers in the capsule. Then, if your a claustrpohic person, just when it couldn't get any worse the doors close.

They were nice enough to put four small windows in the doors, though part of one is obscured by a decal warning against tampering with the doors. In both loading areas there are little to no lights, but for most of the way up there are work light on so you can see the emergency stairs and the inside of the hollow arch structure. It is a most unique elevator ride to say the least, and another term I have heard for it is "Clothes Dryer: The Ride". Once at the top, the doors open and you exit out intoa congested tiny hallway almost filled with riders waiting to go down. Then its up the stairs past the other capsules then a few more stairs to the observation area. The observation room is long and narrow, and is slightly higher in the middle as it follos the curve of the arch. You are told not to stop at the first 2 windows until everybody has had a chance to exit the tram. The windows themselves are tiny, they are not the big large picture windows you might be expecting, instead the are wide, but not very tall. That means you will assuredly have to wait to get near one, then when you get one, owing to the triangular cross section of the arch you have to lean forward on the arch wall , so you actually look down through the window. It has been reported some have a problem with that feeling. On the west side you can see the old courthouse, the old cathedral, the stadiums, and the downtown area, and if yu look sharply down, the park under the arch. From the east, its the riverfront that is the prime viewing draw. You are welcome to spend as much time up here as you'd like. So all in all we boarded the tram at 3:20, and got to the top of the arch around 3:25, not bad for a 2:40 timed ticket entry, eh?.

I'm not sure how long we stayed up top, but you figure its probsbly not more than 10-15 minutes, then as directed you report to a ranger at either tram way, it doesn't matter, when you want to go down. They, actng as host will have you form a line down the center of the observation area if there is no availability on the next train, then once they have unloaded the tram, and those waiting in the loading area have loaded and the tram is away, they start assigning seats like the host in a restaurant assings tables. You go down to your assigned capsule and wait on the yellow portion of the stairs beterrn capsules for the tram to return and unload, ten you can load into it. The ride down is billed as being sightly faster than the ride up, but in between waiting to load, the actual ride down, and walking back to the visitor center, count on another 20 minutes to exit the arch, So just before 4, we have finsihed our 2:40 arch tram tour. When you reach the lower station you exit, and you get the moment I mentioned above the doors open, and you get to see the shock on the newcomers faces. You then exit up the stairs towards the operators console, but instead of taking the same stairs up to the visitor center you instead go down a hallway that runs parallel to the loading area, and then up a stairway at the other end which leads you to the ramp up into the visitors center.

Back in the visitors center, we took care of some needs, bought some souveniers, and then headed out through the north exit which would put us closer to the parking garage. Once back to the car, it was time for more refrshments then we started the drive home to Cincinnati. Our gamble to take I-70 through Indianapolis to try to avoid the construction on I-64 paid off, and after a stop at Red Lobster for dinner, we got to Coasterville, just before midnight. No hotel stay tonight, no sir.

Tomorrow: the conclusion of Coasterville Con 2009 - Kings Island.

Watch for it.

TR: Coasterville Con 2009 - Six Flags St. Louis (8/7/09)

Trip Report: Six Flags St. Louis
St. Louis, MO
August, 7, 2009

Welcome to day 3 of Coasterville Con 2009. Today we go to an all new to me park: Six Flags St. Louis. We did better at getting out of our hotel this morning, in fact even with a stop at Denny's for breakfast, we got the park at 11AM on a 10:30 open.

First impressions of Six Flags start as you approach the park and look down into the valley and see splendors the park all laid out before you. We eagerly exited the interstate, another sign you are in the right place is the park side of the interstate is lined with the Six Flags. We made a right off the interstate and quickly found ourselves in a full access road almost all the way back to the interstate. Our luck of going to parks on very crowded days seems to be continuing. At the other end of the access road we had to stop and pay an exorbitant $15 for the right to park the car. After two days of free parking, this is really going to hit hard.

So after paying $15 we are led all the way around the perimeter of a paved, but in poor condition parking lot. Sure there are closer spaces but it seems like the entire center section is reserved for those who like to pay an obscene $25 to park their car. We are then left to find a space for ourselves. We manage to find a spot in the first row behind the RV lot on the waterpark side. Then seeing no trams, we have to hoof it to the front gate. And' we're paying $15 for this?

We get to the front of the lot, and I get the feeling the waterpark was a park expansion directly into the parking lot, which means what was probably a symetrical entrance place is cut in half. They have made use of the approach by putting the security checkpoint there. Not too much to report getting through the security checkpoint. Since Eric had a season pass, and I had acquired a discount ticket from Six Flags website itself for only $25, we bypassed the ticket booths and went up the ramp and through the front gate. I note the ticket cans have been modifed with a second long narrow slot to deposit the print at home tickets.

You enter the park into the proverbial main street, in this case 1904 St. Louis to coincide with the world's fair. The area is a big oval with shops and restaurants along the outer edges, as well as the access points to the various themed areas. In the center is the parks main theater, with its front doors facing the center of the park, and thhus the side closest to the main gate has more gift shops. I reallt liked the flags they had hanging from the main street like area. I suggest getting a Flashpass (Q-Bot) given the size of the crowd pouring into the park, but we decide to defer that decision.

Now we headed to the left, and the first path to the left would have let us to Evil Kenevil, the park's newest rollercoaster. You may be stunned to learn we passed that one up. Eric and I have a game plan when it comes to visiting large crowded parks where we still need to get the credits. That is to ride the low capacity coasters first, then the rest of the coasters, then if time allow we might move on to selected flat rides and repeat rides. It was with that in mind that we headed directly to Mr. Freeze. Taking a look at the full queue for Scooby Doo did not ease my fears about the crowd in the park.

Mr. Freeze sits in a superhero themed area of the park, and next to Colossus, the parks giant ferris wheel. I noted full cages have been added to the gondolas on the giant wheel. We headed to Mr. Freezes Ice Cream factory tours. At least thats what the facade said, the facade and the ride are worls apart. Once through the facadeyou walk back along walkway to the actual ride itself, and I mean long. Part of the walk is to get you up and over the parks river rapids ride, but I was just glad to keep passing the wait signs as we flew through the empty queue area outside. We got to the real queue area next to the station building and it too was empty. We walked up to the entrance door and passed through a turnstile to enter the building. We decided at the fork in the road to take the path to the furthest station. Rounding the corner Eric said, and here is the coolest part of the ride, as we walked past a big air conditioning vent. We walked up the stairs to find maybe a 3 train wait. Not bad for a shuttle coaster.

The really cool thing about Mr. Freeze is it is a shuttle coaster with two trains. Two trains and a double loading station even. It is so cool to watch, what happens is this: When a train returns from the main ride, it is brought to a stop on the final brakes in the station. Once the train has been brought to a complete stop, the entire track section containing the train slides over to its home loading station. The fins and such slide neatly under the load station floor, leaving a gap no larger than that in a regular coaster installation. Mounted to the moving track on the other side of the train is a mobile unload platform. When the track is lined up with the loading deck, the exit on the unload platform is lined up with the exit gate, so people exit to the movable platform, then exit out the gate at the rear of the station. Station gates them open and people move from the regular load platofrm into the train. There are loose article bins on the mobile unload platform, making them perhaps some of the safest storage bins in the park. Once the bars are checked, and all the staff members are totally off of and behind gates from the mobile track and platform, assuming the main ride is clear, the track section will slide back over to line itself up with the main track. The station lights even dim during a launch. In easier terms, you basically board the ride on the transfer table. But they did it even cooler than that, you see each station has its own semi-dependant tranfer track. I say semi dependant, becuase it can't move if the other station is using the main track, but if the other side is in the load position, and they are havng a delay in loading, the other side could, theoretically be ready again and could shoot another train into the main track without having to wait for the other side to cycle. It also means they can take one station down if need be.

Now, I admit I have torubles fitting into Flight of Fear, which is another Premier rides launcher that was converted to lap bars. I had been told the seatbelts were a Paramount Parks thing, and not to worry about Mr. Freeze. Well, Mr. Freeze is just as bad as, if not worse than Flight of Fear , as far as short seat belts go. Luckily for Eric and I we had two very helpful loaders who were able to convince the seatbelts to fasten. Then it was out turn to slide over to launch, then we launched and this is a no nonsense ride you launch directly into the top hat element, a mini Dragster if you will, but when you come out of the top hat, you do an element that reminds me of an overbanked turn as you loop around to the back of the top hat for the reverse spike. NEaring the top of the spike you can definitely feel its effects as it catches the train and pushe it up to the top of the spike, then you get to di it all again backwards. I have to admit that's a pretty neat ride, even if we didn't feel the need to ride it again. I note the ride has also received a new paint job with a darker shade of blue. Some time for photos, then we headed out the exit ramp that runs right alongside the entrance ramp.

We then headed through the parks arbor, it was nice to see they retained that, and headed up into a medevil themed section of the park. I was excited to see Excalibur, which in a rare Evolution flat ride, but remember flat rides come later in our touring strategy. We headed for Tony Hawk's Big Spin. This is a Gerstlauer spinning mouse. It is evident the area they use for the queue was minimally converted from a show venue. A fan shaped area, you enter by walking down a set of wooden stairs that look like an after thought given all the concrete around it, the fan shpaed area lends itself naturally to use as a queue maze. The area does have some displays and videos about Tony Hawk to keep you occupied. For us it was about 45 minutes for the first ride on Tony Hawk. When you get to the end of the fan shaped waiting area another wooden stairway takes you down to a short tunnel where you duck under the brake run, then turn and go up a set of boarding stairs alongisde the brake run. Operations here are like a perpetual motion machine. There is always one tub waitng to go into the station, but before it can go in the next tub has returned and the homing mechanism has been able to stop and realign it to its home posiiton. Then two cars go out of the station onto the ride, at about the same time the next two tubs start rolling into the station. They then flush load (yes they have the crew to do it) two cars at the same time. No sooner than you are seated and bars checked, they start sending you out. As such the line for this really moves at optimal speed, unlike say a similar ride at Indiana Beach.

So we enter the station, and I note the single ride line starts AFTER you get through the turnstile making it perhaps the most useless single rider line, even more than Mavericks. I noted no use of the single rider line. When you pass the turnstile you are assigned seats and move to the seats, this is seential in keeping people moving. It also has to help things when you realize the cars have no seatbelts, just lap bars, which are large rider friendly. I'd ridden a Gerstlauer spinner at Mall of America, and this is, at the very least a mirror image, but I think its even more custom than that. Its full of just the right kinds of turns and dips to ensure the cars keep spinning. As the people we were paired with said "Why do we get the fastest car, I hate spin rides!" Meanwhile I am trying to contain my excitement. The queue area seems to have been retrofitted from a prior use, but the land the coaster sits on seems to be terraformed just for the ride. I think there is even a walkway that goes under it, and the parks train ride may even duck under a part of it. We exit the ride, and I see the exit ramp has been divided so there is a dedicated Flashpass entrance lane. You come out a fair distance from the ride entrance, requring you to walk around the carousel and through a games midway to get back to the entrance.

We decide to head towards the Boss instead. Near the entrance to the boss is a food cart located directly outside a restroom building. While that may be disturbing in and of itself, there is a stench in the area that I noticed that would have repulsed me from the food cart. I had trouble staying in the spot long enough to read what the medevil style banner next to the food cart said (Restrooms). However, I don't think the stench is from the restrooms themselves, it smells more like a grease disposal tank might be located nearby.

As we head into the Boss's queue eric quips "Here comes the pain!" Boss is one of those rides that has not been getting rave reviews lately. The entrnace for the Boss resemlbes a castle forecourt but thats where it ends, once you are inside the castle gates (or maybe outside the castle gates since you are out of the medevil themed area) you come to the railroad track. Here those entering the ride must go up stairs, cross over the track, then walk back downstairs. Exiting riders just cross over the tracks at ground level (with the help of a park attendnat stationed there of course) From here you are near the rides helix, and just like Mr. Freeze, the entrance and exit ramps run side by side for a long, long, long, long, long way. when you get to the top of the hill, you cross over two bridges that go over the go kart track then you are at the station. For our first ride theline was back to that covered gazebo like thing right before the final section of bridge. When you get to the station you come right next to the exit but you have to walk around the permiter of the station (yes walking up and down stairs to get over the coster track) to get to the other side. We headed to the back seat. It took a bit longer than expected since the back seat in one of the cars was closed off.

Call me strange, but in some ways its nice to be in a Gerstaluer train. Sure it might not have padding, but its got acres of room, and very accomodating restraints. Owing to the lack of seatbelts, they can really get this one loaded pretty fast. So we exit the station, go throug the transfer table where I see one train sitting there. A quick turn to the right to go up the lift. I like the Burma Shave style signs advertising season passes on the way up. Only when you start climbing the lift do you see that mess of coaster track off to the left. Is that all part of the same ride? Well, yes it is. You get to the top of the lift turnaround, and dive down towards that coaster structure, slicing your way in through a small opening, then just when you think you are about go go back up, it hits you with anther drop, and then I think maybe even one more just for good measure before you climb the second hill. Turnaround and here you have a more tradition coaster section with hills and dips that form an impressive structure concealing the first drop trick. Looking for airtime, the ride has plenty of it, like laterals the ride has that too. After finishing this section of trackwaork, its time for the mid course brake, then you cut away from the structure to alongside the back of the ride, roughly paralel to the load station, this leads you into the helix finale. where you go into a long station approachthat wraps around the go kart track. This is another case where I think the ones who complain about this ride are wimps. Sure its intense, sure its got laterals, sure its tosses you around, sure its got airtime. For some reason Voyage does all the same things, and people love Voyage, and at least here you do get a brief respite to catch your breath. That said, I still rank Voyage higher, before you come with at me with the pitchforks and flaming torches.

We then hike the long trail all the way back to the park. I'm not sure, but I think The Boss might actually be located in Celebration City, connected to Six Flags by a long walkway. From here we start summiting the park. I may have mentioned the park sits down in a valley, well the front gate is at the lowest part of the valley, and as you work your way through the park, the further back you go, the higher it gets. We passed a kids area that is themed to a national park and then came to the area that houses Screamin Eagle, that is apparently themed to M&M World as the stairs up into the area are painted to look like a mountain of M&Ms. "It's the big rock candy mountain!" (Please tell me I don't have to embed a link to a YouTube of "Big Rock Candy Mountain")

At the base of the M&M stairs, there is clearly visible a disused queue maze, a Screamin Eagle sign, and another smaller sign pointing the way to the ride entrance. To get the ride entrance you go up the M&M stairs, and come to a games area that houses the Parks Giant Drop front and center. Its a Superman Power of Tower, and it was closed all day. They weren't even working on it, we did note the installation is no frills, and very compact. We found the entrance to Screaming Eagle tucked in the back of a row of games joints, where it is right next to the exit ramp. Another small sign marks the entrnace. Unfortunately for us, there were peole streaming out both the entrance and exit, as the ride had just gone down.

We backtracked and started heading back down the hill as we passed the Rush Street Flyer (Falling Star with a custom streetcar theme), a Yo-Yo, bumper cars and we came to a shoot the chutes rides. The point being the park still has lots of flat rides scattered about it. We were getting overheated about this point, so we decided to go stand on Tidal Wave's exit bridge to get an instant cool down. At first it appeared our plan would be foiled by one of those rotary turnstiles that used to appear at the entrance doors of discount stores everywhere, but quick observation let us know the thing will freely spin in both directions, meaning its totally useless. So we went up to the bridge, got about two or three drenchings (front and back) Ahh, that feels better. We then remembered the mine ride, which is located in about the center of the park.

We headed for the River King Mine Train, and uh, oh, this ride is closed as well. We headed to the Gotham City section of the park. We pass a round boarded up building and Eric tells me "Last time I was here there was a spinning barrels ride behind that fence just wasting away". We eventually make it to Ninja. Upon entering Ninja, I was glad to see the first queue house was entirely cut off. and the second queue maze was empty the line was just to the bottom of the steps. It's not a surprise that Six Flags likes to sponsor out its rides - Boss has the Mircale Whip sunscreens all around the station, Screamin Eagle has the M&M steps and signage, Ninja is Hinez Kethup. The sponsorship sign at the bottom of the stairs is a no line jumping sign in disqguise. "Patience is a Ninjas strongest weapon"Okay, so they gain points for incoprataing the rides theme into the sponsorship but lose it again by showing a now uncommon glass bottle of Heinz Ketchup, you know the ones that have almost all but vanished, owing in no small part the public's lack of patience in getting one of those bottles started. Strike the numbers boys, strike the numbers.

The ride does have some minimal theming in the name of two ninja statues flanking the entryway. We get up to the station, and one of the middle of the train rows is clearly marked "SINGLE RIDERS ENTER HERE" I thought maybe it led to a holding pen for single riders, but no its just a normal ride line. I guess they don't tolerate singles on this ride, depsite it being a high capacity ride. This is one of those Vekoma muli elements that would easily trick you into thiking its an Arrow ride. We climb into the back seat, and pull down the bright orange shoulder bars which have the "Don't Sit On Me!" super size grab bars. The ride itself is your standard 1980's multi element, you have the vertical loop, two corkscrews, a sidewiner, and the bad transitions you have come to expect.

We walked around the area, and is that a Joker themed swinging ship ride, thats a novel theme. We come around to Batman: The Ride, and Eric reports that after his recent experiences with Batman the Ride at Six Flags over Georgia, he's not even going to try this one, and I shouldn't have tried it either having just recently being denied Raptor a month earlier. But being bull headed, and needed the coaster credit after all, I headed into the queue. I had worn a Xavier shirt to the park, and yes it was a calculated move as St. Louis is home to A10 rival, St. Louis University. Entering the Batman queue was the first time that somebody both noticed the shirt and spoke up. Yes, the shirt drew attention, but at least judging by the people who spoke up, it seemed to draw positive attention, as Xavier is respected out in St. Louis, apparently. The Batman greeter being the first to speak up.

So you enter the ride through Batman City Park, and its another of the parks patented long non adjustable queues, this one has the added feature of having no straight sections as it seems to twist and turn and wind itself up the hill to the ride. There is no picking up speed here, then you exit the park area and go through the junkyard, industrial like area. I was glad to see the qaueue stay empty, take the shortest bath, and the line streched only back as far as right when you go inside, right before the giant box fan. I was glad to see they did not go with the big sweat box warehouse queue that Six Flags over Georigia went with.

We got up to the station, and first I held back to see if Row 4 or 5 had any Big Boy seats, but no such luck there. So knowing my chances for rejection were equal in any seat, I headed right for the traditional B&M "Hot Seat" which is the rear left corner. I sat down, lowered the bar and the bar locked, thn I started to attack the seatbelt, and my intial reaction was "Not a Chance!, Not even close!" The first ride attendant didn't have much luck either, but she called over this other ride attendant, who literally pput both hands on the shoulder bar, then jumped up in the air putting all his weight into the shoulder bar. Click-Click. Now that seatbelt reached. I thanked the man, and if you were allowed to tip ride operators...

Now onto Batman, the Ride, or should I call it eriR ehT: namtaB, as this is the mirror image. version. Well, I get to add another Batman to my collection, already having collected the rides at Great Adventure, Georgia, and Magic Mountain. It's the standard B&M Inverted coaster.

After riding Batman, we decided to head to the car for refreshments, since we were already so close to the front of the park. We headed back to the main street like area, and I like how they put the waterpark gate right inside the main gate, no needless treking all the way throught the park here. We got our hand stamps and walked back to our car. Not only did we enjoy refreshments, we also enjoyed an extended session of "Air Conditioning: The Ride" Looking around the parking lot, it was not an ERT on Air Conditioning: The Ride as others were also clearly enjoying 15 minutes or so of A/C. Turn the A/C on max point the vents right towards you and "Come to Papa!"

After our Air Conditiing session, we re-entered the park, and took a walk through the gift shops. We saw some things that had minor interest (Mr. Six Bobblehead anybody?) but we never did make it back to actually buy anything. We headed to River King Mine Ride, and would you know it, we saw it running while we were on Ninja, but its closed again.

We decide to take the train ride. The train has one of those classic entrances where you walk through the train station. The station itself has amenties like a cell phone charging machine, though I noted the iPhone connector was broken off. Take a while to read the arrivals and departures board. It has stuff like " Train 3: Arrives ; When it gets here. Leaves: Sometime Later. Train 5: Arrives: Looking of missing cabosse Leaves: When its found." The train cars look a lot like the ones at Kings Island, which makes sense, the parks about the same age, and they are both Crown. A local PBS station has bought adds on all the seatbacks. From what I understand they have only one train now, but they offer a nice ride. You start out by the entrance to River King Mine Train, cross the midway and go behind the scnees alongisde Mine Train where your train enginer will let off any excess steam, you then go behind Ninja and circle the Gotham City like area, so at one point you have Batman to one side, and the waterpark to the other side, you then cross back through the center of the park and stop close to theater in the center of the park. Wait for people to load or unload then continue along, past Colossus and Scooby Doo, then it circles around the area with the Antique Cars, Evil Kenevil, Log Flume and Boss. Did I mention the train ride is a coaster enthusiasts dream? You get to go past the train barn before cutting under Tony Hawk and passing alongside the kiddie land before returning to the station nearest Mine Train. I like how the kiddie land is themed to a national park and has a Mt Rushmore parody with loony tunes figures. One thing we had noted, almost every ride over spiel plugged the Glow in the Park parade, tonight at 9:10, the queue line televisions kept plugging the parade, and so did the PA announcements. We decided we are just going to have to watch this parade to see what the fuss is all about. Of course, we soon also realized this would mean eating a meal at the park, which wasn't exactlly an appealing prospect.

At this station you exit away from the station, up the stairs, and through the kiddieland. We headed back around to Screamin Eagle. The good news is it was running this time. We entered the queue area where first you walk around a paver that has the ride logo engraved in it. I then noted the disused hillside section of the queue. I was glad the lower queue house was also disused, but the line reached back almost to the queue house. From there you go up a series of switchback ramps up into the station.

We got to the station, and owing to a bad design, you enter at the front of the station, which means the congestion around the front car leads to near empty seat queues for the back car, once you squeeze your way through. Also of interest in the station, is not only does the ride not have lockers, it has enough storage cubbyholes for every seat on the train, not only that they are color coded for the train, and the columns are assigned by car with large arrows directing you fro your seat to your cubbie. We headed to our usual spot, the back seat, where else? Well, the seatbelts aren't quite as short as Thunder Run, but they were a struggle for me. All fastended in we head out of the station, up the lift, around the turnaround. The ride is basically an out and back design by John Allen. However, the ride is a terrain out and back, almost like a Voyage 30 years before Voyage. By theat I mean the drop off the lift hill is okay, the second drop is a small one, but then you cross over the lift approach and go down drop three into a ravine that was obscured from view by the loading station. Excellent, airtime to be had as well. You continue along like an out and back, but 2 or 3 more times, just when you are expecting a hill, you get hit with another drop as you go further and further down the hill. The ride squeals loudly on th efar turnaround, and then its the peppy return back to the station. Yes, a classic series of bunny hops, and such. This is a great coaster, maybe one of John Allen's best for number of airtime moments.

After sucessfully adding Screamin Eagle, the parks patriotic themed coaster to our list of accomplishments, we headed back to River King Mine Train, I mean third time's the charm, right? River King Mine Train is the parks original rollercoaster, boarding in almost the center of the park. It started like with two similar tracks, and was the scene of an early failed stand up conversion on one of its two tracks. That track was quickly restored to traditional mine car seating, and lasted until the late 80's when it went to Dollywood. I mention this becuase I had ridden that half at Dollywood before it headed to Magic Springs. Now it's time to ride the other half.

We entered the queue and after a short path entered a large station house. The station is roughly traingle shape and I think it probably once originally served both tracks, till they walled off the side where the missing track would be. Eric suggested they should go ahead an totally redo the station house. The problem with it is the ride loads the old fashioned way. There are no seat queues, instead when you come around the final turn of the queue you have an area barely wider than a queue lane that people walk down and stand behind gates. I think the idea is that you start with the front seat and fill the train front to back, though they do seem a bit tolerant if you are choosy.

The ride itself is classic old school arrow mine ride, you have the first lift and a twisty section near the front of the ride, then another lift hill and an out and back like section that runs alomst to Ninja and back, and then a third lift hill. The third lift hill leads directly into the mine tunnel, which conceals the biggest drop on the entire ride, which is the last drop. We exit the ride, and there is a bridge where you cross over the front part of the ride to exit into a cul de sac between mine ride and the railroad track. They have those rotary turnstiles to try to make it a one way path, except of the two, one of them is busted and spins the wrong way, so its pretty much unuseable. We had so much trouble finding the mine ride open, we went and rode it two more times while we were in the area. On one ride we overheard a hillarious guest comment. Realize that River King Mine Train and Ninja run right alonsgside each other at one point, and both feature black arrow style track. One one ride the riders in front of us looked over and said "Are we going through THAT!!!??!!!" Classic.

After River King Mine Train we decide to ride the railroad back around to the front of the park. But first, we stop in the restroom in the area. Okay, the door clearly says MEN, we walk in and the restroom is done in shades of pink and rose, but more importantly is missing a key piece of furniture that is essential to any self respecting mens room. That's right, no urinals. We do a double take, even go back outside to check the sign again. While we were in there, we noted we werewn't the only ones to do a double take,. At least the parks restrooms are clean, air conditioned, and they do a good job at keeping the floors dry. What more could you ask for?

We rode the train around to the other station, and then headed towards Evil Kenivil. I do like the original Screamin Eagle train coming out of the side of the gift shop. It even has its old style lap bars. We headed to the front of the park, and took a path under the railroad which comes out by the antique cars, and then we passed some sort of Nintendo sponsor pavillion where you could try out the new Wii Sports Resort. That's right, free video games in a Six Flags park. This area has the Antique Cars, Evil Kenevil, and the log flume. I understand this may have been the original kiddieland before it got moved to a more central location. That would follow the pattern for parks established in the early 70's to have its kiddieland off to the side. Now parks are starting to either put them near the center of the park, or scattter the kids rides throughout the park so the parents don't get 'stuck' in one spot all day. There are a couple kids rides in the area still, and Shazam, which is an interesting name for a Scrambler. HOwever, we are here to ride Evil Kenevil.

The first part of the queue is traditional Six Flags St Louis exit and entrance run right next to each other, then the entrnace line splits off and goes further back the path. Luckily for us the queue stretched back to just where you start to walk under the structure. Through the line they have displays all about Evil Kenevil, and the ride also has a patriotic theme, just like a classic Evil Kenievil costume. When we got to the front of the line, we headed to the back of the GCI train, knowing the troubles we have with their shared seat belts, we move to seperate cars. That amkes getting the belt fastened a lot easier, though Eric reported problems getting the lap bar down, but in the end he was able to get it locked all on his own. The ride, like a lot of GCI's is a midsize ride, not too big, in fact I think its the shortest wood coaster in the park for height and length. What the ride does focus on is numerous curves and cross overs. Thats not to say the ride doesn't have airtime, it does, not powerful like Boss or Screamin Eagle, but nice floating air nonetheless. It's not a bad ride at all, and I do think its better than Renegade, but for recent GCI's I have to give the nod to Kentucky Rumbler.

Sound the trumpets, we have now completed phase 1, ride all of the parks coasters. Time to head to second tier rides, and so we headed to Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo and the Scary Swamp or something like that. The ride has a facade of a victorian house along the midway, and the queue is outside in the gardens and appears to run alongside a creek. We walked throught he long straight part of the queue to the back alright, and the line was back to about the 45 minute wait sign, though we think it took closer to an hour. The other half of the garden queue back to the front is very windy so as to hide its true length. When you get to the front, you walk alongisde the front of the house and go in the front door. There is a very short section of indoor air conditioned queue before you go out the back door of the facade house that fronts the ride. At this point you go up some stairs, cross over the waterway, and read some instructional signs. Unlike most Sally dark rides, this one requires both accuracy and timing. That is because the targets can be lit in three different colors, Green worth 500 points, Amber for 750 points, or Red for 1000 points. Some targets cycle with green being the most common state, and others progress through the cycle by repreated hits. A far cry from the "All targets score 30" system I am used to. At the end of the bridge you go downstairs to a boarding platform set in the middle of a trough split, much as is used on traditional log flumes. I think they say the boats seat 4 in two rows of two, but getting more than 2 adults in there would seem to be a stretch. We board the boat, and I don't know if its the slow moving boat based ride system, but the ride aeemed to be much longer than your standard Sally dark ride. It had all the scenes I am used to from Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle, but it had more scenes besides. I think this may be the best of the Scooby dark rides I have ridden, and I'm not just saying that because I won. At the end of the ride you exit to the center, up the stairs, across the trough, down the stairs and then back through the victorian house facade.

As we passed Mr. Freeze I was curious about a large sign placed in it's plaza. Apparently the ride was down to just one station, I'm sure glad we rode it earlier. We then were hungry and headed to Mooseburger Lodge. Mooseburger Lodge was bad in just about every respect, the prices were high, the service was slow, they didn't allow refills, and the burger was dry, I mean dry as in a liberal dousing in mustard and mayo didn't help the dry taste in my mouth, and thats besides the stale bun. To be fair you do get both fires and onion rings, and those are provided in a very generous quanitity. This is one of those meals you get to enjoy all night, if you know what I mean. They have Marty Moose and other hunting lodge type heads on the walls, along with a button to start the show. Don't be expecting animation, I think the show is just an audio recording, and you can imagine the figures come to life.

After dinner, Eric decided to run out to the car to try to remedy that bad meal, and I head to Screamin Eagle, a ride or two later, and Eric joins me for a Screamin Eagle ride. All rides taken in back seat thanks to the station setup. On oneof those rides, I rode with a cute girl with a St Louis University shirt on, that was a classic moment, as I was decked out in Xavier gear.

We then headed towards Boss, but when we came to Excalibur, we noted an empty queue area and the ride being loaded. We hurried through the empty queue area and got on the ride. First off, I reliaze the ride name Excalibur fits in with the medevil theming in the area, but it seem slike the statues closest to Excalibur are of archers, not knights with swords. Also the ride itself looks more like a catapult or trebuchet than a sword. The ride looks like an old Frisbee ride, except instead of a continuous ring of seats facing out, you have several four passenger cars facing outward. Also the main boom in the center of the ride extends up above the support structure to form a counterweight. We get loaded into the cars which feature a low fence along the front of the car so you keep your legs and feet in the car, and shoulder bars. They also feature on board audio, so you can hear the operators directions and spiels as if he were in the car with you. The ride is noteworthy as there are only three like it from this manufacturer in the hole world, and might, in fact, be the only one in active service. That doesn't excuse them from running it in a very wimpy program.

What happens is the ride starts spinning, causing the seats to tip back so you are looking up towards the sky as the ring of cars spins faster and faster, then after some build up the ride operator says something about catapulting you around, the ride then does a pretty slow revolution, it doesn't swing back and forth, it makes it all the way over and around on the first try. Once you complete your one revolution, the main boom stoops and the ring of cars slow down. That's it, this is a ride thats bark is much worse than its bite. The cars suggest they could flip upside down, but I don't think they really do, not for any appreiciable time anyway, when all the way up at the top, you pause for a few moments, but the cars are upright as they spin around.

We then head to Boss, this time the line is just back to the turnstile, so its getting shorter, we also noted they added the third train, which is helping thigns out. We had another great back seat Boss ride, and would have loved to power ride, except for the long long hike to get to and from the ride. It's especially frustrating as there is a cut throught hey could use right by the station, and the entry line wasn't even back to the cut through. I do note that they put the machine to activate your FlashPass all the way down by the midway, so even if you have Gold Flash Pass it would appear someone in your group still has to make the long needless hike between every cycle to reactivate their Q Bot.

We exited the ride and I noted they had a Schwarzkopf style Enterprise ride. I had ridden many HUSS Enterprise rides, but never a Schwarzkopf. Eric indicated he would be on Tony Hawk when I was done. Highland Fling (the Enterprise) happend to be a walk on, and so I walked right to a car. The HUSS version has the cars that seat two in an in-line fashion, though you usually only see one in a car anymore as people aren't fond of sitting in antohers crotch on rides anymore. The HUSS is identified by having tubs with mostly open sides to them, with the excpetion of a metal grillwork on the sides, with the panel on the outisde edge on a sliding track so it can move out of the way for loading.

The tubs on a Scwarzkopf have a more solid side with a small window on the side, and a door like opening towards the front. I don't know if you are meant to put two in these tubs as instead of the seat cushion being mere inches off the floor, the ride has a normal height seat with a footwell. That explains the more solid car sides. The other distingushing feature is the cage opens up like a grill cover, meaning the top flips up, hinged on top of the inner side and when you you lift it up the metal grillwork that fills in the window and door opening on thhe outer edge of the car also move up out of the way. I'm not sure if the car roofs actually lock or if the forces of the ride pushing down on them is sufficient to prevent them from beng opened mid ride. I found the tub much harder to get into, and not as comfortable to sit in as the HUSS ride, but once the lids are closed, the ride experience is pretty much the same, you start spinning around on a horizontal axis, then the ride raises up until you are spinning almost on a vertical axis, then lowers back down. I'm glad I got to ride this version, but I still think I'll take the HUSS version.

I got to Tony Hawk just as Eric was about to board, he rode, exited, and then both of us got in line, it was only about a 15 minute wait or so at this point. Whee, fun spin ride. We noticed it was getting pretty dark out, but we figured we have plenty of time, like almost a half hour until the parade. We head to Boss. Boss is almost a complete walk on at this point, so we walk onto the back seat, and we each ride solo. I think we have a contender for best night ride here, riht up there with Voyage, that is becuase there is very little lighting out on the course. So take an intense coaster I'm not too familar with an add disorientation due to darkness. I love it!

After ridign the Boss, we start to walk the parade route, we would like to think of ourselves as being seasoned park goers. We reflect this by grabbing spots that are as close to the front gate as possible, with no obstructions, usch as the parade route itself. We end up waiting by a smallish arcade that has all merchandise prize games inside, and doubles as the FlashPAss rental center. Well, they start out like Disney, they clear the parade route, they erect a rope and stanchion barricade, they start dimming the lights in phases before the actual parade. We were honestly expecting a short tacky 5 minute parade after which we would make some cracks about live entertainment at Six Flags. What we got was much more impressive. The parade runs about 25 minutes long, and has numerous floats that are well decorated, a cool sound track, and all kinds of walking pieces like the giant kinetic animal puppets, a real honest to goodness marching band (it wouldn't be a parade without one), Mr. Six riding like a dignitary in one of the parks antique cars to start the parade. From our vantage point we could see not only the parade appearing to come almost directly right at us (before turning) but also up into the park and every time we though the end was coming, we'd look up the hillside and see more parade coming. You can bet all the park characters also got a part in the parade, and iftting for a Six Flags park it ends with the big Looney Tunes "That's All Folks!" float.

As soon as we saw the last float, even though we had about 15 more minutes of park time,we headed to the park exit, and givin our planning we were out the gate, through the parking lot, and into our car before the crowds started showing up. I did note they park took down the Six Flags dislay right outside the park gates, but no the one lining the highway. Getting out of the parking lot was a lot easier, basically you head to the center, then the back, then te side opposite where you entered, then a roadway takes you back up along the highway to the main road. It was particuarly more pleasant than entering as it did not involve a $15 fee.

I was someone surprised Garmin gave us directions to our hotel that included how to exit Six Flags parking lot. Now, Garmin had told us our hotel was 20-30 minutes from the park, so we were surprised when it seemed like we had only gone a few exits and it told us to exit, then go several miles down a 55mph road. We were skeptical, but decided to put our faith in Garmin. We were downright worried when Garmin directed us onto a dark, twisty, 25mph road through dense woods. "I don't like the looks of this one bit" But she said we were almost to the hotel. We come out alongside some sort of general aviation airport and then yep, there is the hotel. We never doubted Garmin for a second, yeah right.

We get checked in and before heading to bed, we run out to a convenience store to restock on drinks, particularly Gatorade. You know you are in a nice part of town when you see two luxury cars in a convenience store parking lot. We get our 6 pack of Gatorade "You guys must be thirsty", though I think he was more surprised we didn't buy any beer from him.

We then headed to our room, and with a light schedule tomorrow, we can sleep in, somewhat.

Next up: The St. Louis Gateway Arch

Watch for it!

TR: Coasterville Con 2009 - Holiday World (8/6/09)

TR: Holiday World
Santa Claus, IN
August 6, 2009

*********************

At the end of the last chapter, you may recall we arrived at our hotel just outside Louisville, KY after driving 3 hours from Indiana Beach and arriving around 1am. So, we had a short night, and hot on the road around 9am which should have been great timing as it would get up to Holiday World right around 10am. Well, recall that massive road construction project on I-64 that stretched clean across the great State of Indiana that I mentioned in the Holiwood Nights trip report? Well, it's still there, and that delayed our arrival at the park to about 10:30-10:45am.

We turned off I-64 and headed back the 7 mile drive to the park until we came to the intersection where you make the turn right by Holidog's Funtown. You may recall on my last visit we commented on the new traffic light, and that it looked like they were building a major new parking lot entrance. The new parking lot entrance was open, and staff were enthusiastically waving us towards it. Still no tollbooths, but the long windy access road takes you all the way to the back of the Legend Lot. The Legend lot itself is still gravel except for a few key places. Here parking attendants guided us to a parking space, then we walked to the end of our row and boarded a parking tram, just like those big name parks used to do. In this case the parking tram can only take you as far as the front of the Legend lot where a tram station has been built. Owing to the design of the tram station, for some people it may be shorter to walk BACK to tram stop 1, then have to walk clear around the fenced off tram circle. The tram lets you off right across from the tunnel, where further fences ensure you walk to the front gate by walking around the perimeter of the lot, not through the lot.

We were dismayed by the flood of people we saw pouring into the park. Pat Koch was standing at her usual post by the front gate welcoming people into the park. I had "won" some tickets through a television station promotion where they would let you buy tickets 2 for one. We entered the park using our $20 Media tickets instead of buying $40 general admission tickets.

Once inside the park, we realized we were hungry, so instead of heading right to a ride, we headed directly to Plymouth Rock Cafe. On the way there, we could see the lines for Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, Rough Riders, and Turkey Twirl, so its going to be that kind of day. What happned was our coaster trip happened to be the only summer like week we had all summer. Luckily, others must not have been hungry yet as we walked right up to the serving counter at Plymouth Rock. It's a cafeteria that offers your standard Meat Plus Three service. It's around $7-$10 depending on your entree choice, but for that I got a nice serving of roast turkey, sweet potato, green beans, fried apple, and a roll. Drinks, of course, are always free at Holiday World. The come-on here is the deserts are about $3 each, but of course we got one of those too. Pumpkin pie anyone? When the place first was announced they said there would be indoor seating, but that didn't materialize. We went outside and had a nice filling lunch, this realy is one of the better theme park dining bargains.

After lunch we checked out the line for Gobbler Getaway, full, and headed to Voyage. The line for Voyage was just backing up into the outside queue area, and although we feared the big indoor queue area may be open, we do need to ride something while we are here. We enter the Voyage queue, and upon entering the station building, were delighted to learn we were being sent directly upstairs instead of down into the basement to the large queue maze of doom. I don't think I've seen that lower level used since 2007.

We got up to the station and took seats near the back in 6.2. We noticed one thing, we saw a train take off, we saw a train pull in, we then saw a train on the back brake. Obviously they were runnign three trains today. So onto out ride, up the lift hill, and yes 5 airtime filled hills on the outbaound leg, then the nastiest turnaround you will see on a wood coaster, complete with drops, twists, 2 90 degree banks, and it just very intense. You take the first drop of the return leg and come out on the mid course brake, which is only like 6' off the ground, thanks to the terrain. You don't slow at all on the mid course, then you enter into the long tunnel and its a deep triple down in the dark to get the party started for the return leg.. The return leg weaves itself back and forth through the outbound leg structure while producing nice lateral and airtime moments of its own. You then get back near the station, after the final 90 degree bank turn, but don't think you are done, after a track job to align yourself witht he station house, you go through a tunnel in the lower level queue area, then come back up, then right back down into a tunnnel under the midway, where you pop up for the final turnaround right nect to the Pepsi Oasis building. The final brake is on a high section of track right above the big Thanksgiving banner as you enter the section. It's just a right hand turn and a slow return to the station from there. It may not have been running as intense as the post storm rides in May, but it was holding its own quite nicely. Eric's big complaint is the ride doesn't give you a chance to catch your breath, its just non stop intensity all the way through. We go back for another ride, and this time wait for the back seat. Yup, Voyage still has it, and is already starting to warm up.

We next head to Legend. WE walk down the stairs into the Legend quee area, and discover its queue area to be half full, and the indoor queue area to be full. We then deicde since we have waited that long to go ahead and wait for the back seat. I don't think I have waited this long for Legend since its one train days when it first opened. Like in May, I can say they are doing good things with Legend, it is running like it did when it was new, and the Four Turns of Doom are quite powerful.

We then headed up to Raven, and walking through the Raven queue I can see we must have just missed a crowd since the Raven queue was set up for its long configuration, but the line was just to the bottom of the steps. We, of course, waited for Raven's back seat. At least they had two trains on Raven and Legend. I'm not so sure about Raven, when I first rode it 1996, I thought it was great, but now probably thanks to having Voyage in the same park, the Fifth Drop doesn't do it for me anymore, and the whole ride seems short. I mean the first drop is good, and there are still laterals in the Lake Rudolph turn and the S turn after the big drop, it just doesn't seem as good as it used to.

We then decided to check out Splashin Safari. Visiting a water park in a park is a huge time investment. We did do the gift shop run on our way out to the parking lot, then hiked all the way back to the car, got swim bags, hiked all the way back into the park. Got into the park just in time to see Santa mingling in the fountain area. We headed to Splashin Safari, got in another line to rent lockers. Here locker rental is $10, just like the big name parks, but here you get $7 back when you return the key, not like the big name parks. I then headed into the bathhouse, and I don't know if I just hadn't noticed them before, or if they are reading my trip reports, but there are private changing rooms in the bathhouse, not many of them, but they are available. After getting changed and a quick shower (clever the way the have the pull rope mostly tacked down to the wall so it isn't hanging in the middle of the aisle), then it was to the self serve free sunscreen station to slather excessive amounts of free sunscreen all over the exposed parts of my body.

We then decided to go ride Pilgrims Plunge first. As we were walking through the waterpark we were talking about how this water park looked on our first visit in 1996. At the time they had a wave pool, a kids pool, a lazy river, that one slide tower nearest the park, and maybe Wautubee, but I'm not sure about Wautubee. They have since expanded with a long row of water slides (Otorongo, which is three slides), ZoomBabwe, Zinga (funnel slide), Jungle Racers) as well as add two or three wet water activity areas, including two of those water slide/play structures with the pourng barrels. Lately they have added a second wave pool, a second lazy river, and Bakuli (toilet bowl slide). Next year they get a watercoaster. They have easil built this up into a complete waterpark that could easily stand on its own. It is also quite huge now. This year the park added the Pilgrims Plunge shoot the chutes ride and placed it so it falls on the border of Splashin Safari and Thanksgiving. So we headed all the way to the back of Splashin Safari, then down a path that goes under Voyage. Remember that little gate I mentioned was blocking the path that people were jumping over in May, well its been replaced by a more substantial gate. So we go through the tunnel under the Plunge observatio area to come up the hill right by the Pilgrims Punge exit.

At this point there is a 'customs' station to make sure those Splashin Safari guests don't make it into Thanksgiving without propper atire. We pressed on and followed the numerous, large, "ENTER HERE" signs. Oh no, a totally full queue house, at least we have the worlds largest fan to keep us cool. You know what else, now that the park has ordered and received extra boats for the ride, the line really never stops moving, its like a 20-30 minute walk to get onto the ride. I was happy to see, that due to the extra boats they were needing to stop the boats in the station, hey I win all the way around on this. We get seated in the middle of a boat, pull down the lap bars and are on our way. Right after you leave the station you go down a long meandering river, and it was quite clear our boat was listing to the left, yeah not a lot of planning went into that seating arangement. After the meandering river you come to an area where you stop and wait for an elevator, then you get onto the elevator. I think we got the most wet sitting still waiting for the elevator to rise as water from above kept raining down on us. The elevator is fast, quiet, and creepy with the way it bows out. Once to the top you pause a few seconds before it pushes you out of the elevator and down the drop. You get to the bottom of the drop, and just when you are thinking "Is that it?" you get hit by the splashdown. Don't worry, you honestly don't get that wet. Then its the long run out, then the jouney past all the coin operated water geysers. Finally you hit the lift hill up into the station, and you exit. At this point they have temporary barriers that lead you past the on ride photo booth, but those can easily be avoided. I did note the lift hill does allow excess water to drain out of drains in the back of the boar. We then took the long walk back to Bahari River.

Bahari River is the parks newer lazy river. We were surprised to find no line for it, and in fact wound up going around three times, yes taking the longer path each time. I took great delight in trying to navigate myself into as many water falls, sprayers, and the like as I could. There is just something peaceful about a lazy river, even if I think they may have let a few too many people into this one as we kept getting jammed up.

After Bahari River, we took a look at Bakuli, the 60 minute wait didn't sound appetizing, but we walked up to the observation deck. Man, they have this planned out well, it seems that practically every raft makes exactly two spins around the toilet bowl, guided by water jets. We were surprised to see they would let multiple rafts into the toilet bowl area at one time. Still seeing as they were only putting 2 people in a raft, we decided to wait for another visit for this one.

In fact we decided we were out of water park mode, changed back to street clothes, returnied locker keys, and headed back to Thanksgiving. We ended the day with two more rides on Voyage, yes back seat, and yes they were even crazier than early in the day. We then did a photo walkthrough of the park, hit the gift shops, then headed out. I like how the Legends transfer track is now labeled as something like "Stable 2"

We exited the park, collected our car, and headed out the old entrance to the Legend Lot, and drove over to the post office. Eric wanted to send one of his young relatives a postcard from Santa. We had the postcard prepared, but the Santa Claus post office does not have a stamp vending machine for selling stamps after hours. Luckily Holiday Foods was able to set us up with some stamps. So the postcard gets mailed, and while in the post office we run into Will Koch. Talk for a few moments and are then on our way to St. Louis.

Six Flags St. Louis is a huge park I haven't been to, Eric hasn't been there in a good 10 years or so, it's Friday and with the way huge crowds have been following us, we figure we'd need all the time we could get at Six Flags St. Louis, and we also decided it would be good to get a good nights sleep, so we left Holiday World early, and set outrselves up at a hotel just 15 miles east of St. Louis. A quick drive through dinner of Culvers to end the night. Oh, and that I-64 road work followed us most of theway to St. Louis.

Next up: Six Flags St. Louis - watch for it!

TR: Coasterville Con 2009 - Indiana Beach (8/5/09)

Trip Report: Indiana Beach
"On Beautiful Lake Schafer, Monticello, IN"
August 5, 2009

******

I am much delighted to bring you, after a 5 year hiatus, a report of Coasterville Con. I'm back with my friend Eric and we are back on the road doing what else, riding coasters, eating food, and seeing the sights.

I hadn't seen Eric in a few years, so I was much delighted when I met him after work on August 4. We went down that night to see the Reds take on the Cubs. Well, that didn't go over to well, as the Reds rolled over and played dead, and the fans made Great American Ball Park feel like Wrigley Field South.

But enough of that, around 9AM Wednesday, August 5th we are on the road with Miss Garmin navigating. This set us up to get to Shapiro's in Indianapolis right around 11AM for some nice corned beef sandwiches for lunch. I think Eric might have been a bit shocked at the size of his lunch. After lunch we take time to take photos of Lucas Oil Stadium, and then head up to Indiana Beach.

Okay, its like 2PM when we arrive on the scene at Indiana Beach. On the way to the park we pass a billboard that is both very true and misleading. It has a big full color picture of Cornball Express with the word "FREE" next to it in large friendly letters. In not so large letters under the word FREE are the words "General Admission" This is part of the new park managements changes to the park, in this case eliminating the general admission fee. We pull into the South parking lot and note that it might be a bit crowded today, we decline the opportunity to pay $5 to park in the first two rows of the South lot, opting to park in the third row for Free, and then walking through the empty first two rows. We were a bit of a ways away from the gate, so much so that we walked through a cluster of picnic shelters that proudly bore the sign: "NO PICNICS!" Huh?

We made our way to the front gate, and noticed the disused roto-gates at the exit. There are ticket windows at the top of the walkway into the park, but they had lines and we decided to take a chance on getting wristbands inside the park. So we walk right past those booths, head down a hillside and come to a new gatehouse built at the parking lot side of the suspension bridge. At some point in time, I think this is going to be a gated park. Right now this gatehouse has turnstiles on both sides, and a tensabelt barrier in the center for strollers and wheelchairs. An attendant is there enforcing dress code, I suppose, as they said nothing as we carried soft drinks right into the park. At the current time they have some turnstiles labeled "ENTER HERE YOUR FIRST TIME ONLY" and the others labeled "RE-ENTER ONLY" It all seems rather pointless, as there is no enforcement mechanism, so its just as easy to enter through whichever turnstile has the shortest wait. Hope they weren't tryingto get any real usage stats out of that gate.

We then walked across the suspension bridge, and I tell you this is one of the greatest amusement park entrances, big classic rollercoaster lining the lakeside, with a sky ride and giant wheel visible. We get to the other side of the bridge where the general admission booth is boarded up, we proceed to walk down the steep ramp into the park.

We start walking down the main midway, and as Eric pointed out, the park exudes an atmopshere of Fun with oldies music and a boardwalk that looks like it is stuck in the 60's. We passed by a lot of classic rides and noted the parks new Splash Battle attraction, but we'll come back to that. We get about halfway downt he midway, to about where the Shafer Queen dock is and we come to a ride ticket booth with a shorter line. We pulled out a Walgreen's receipt and managed to get two ride all day wristbands for $30, total. What a deal! Another policy change is eliminating the early and late ride sessions, if you buy a rides wristband its good all day. In fact whereas the old owners seemed to try to shorten your stay as much as possible with 7 hour wristbands, the new owners are going for 2 and 3 day packages. We recieved our bright yellow wristbands featuring a park logo and a barcode that wraps almost all the way around the band. Before we could use the wristbands the cahsier activated them at the ticket booth.

We then headed for the rides, we had noted Lost Coaster had a full queue, so we headed to Steel Hawg. Steel Hawg is definietely a parking lot coaster. You head as if you were going to the north exit, in fact I think it is out further than the old northen general admission gate. They have constructed a new stretch of midway with games and the like so you don't feel quite out there.

Steel Hawg is the park's newest coaster, and "the only custom steel coaster in Indiana" It's main gimick is that the lift hill is not straight down, its actually something like 111 degrees, yup it is steeper than straight down, so you get a little inversion on the first drop, later on you go through a longer section of track into a turnaround upside down, and then towards the end there is my favorite element, something akin to a corkscrew or barell roll that is part of a drop. The rest of the ride is your standard compact trackplan steel coaster. The queue area is about 1/2 to 3/4 full when we join, and we are all smiles and making time out here in the unshaded hot sun, owing to efficient three car operation, when we get about halfway up the stairs to the boarding station and the ride goes down. Luckily it is down only about 15 minutes and we wait it out.

So, all in all about 45 minutes later we are beng welcomed into the station. What interests me is that the ride is designed for two stop loading, yet they routed the queue up into the unload end of the station, and put the exit ramp at the load end of the station, so oncoming and outgoing riders have to criss cross each other. So they group us lead us to the wristband scanner, then we head to the car. The ride has several 4 seat cars, of which they were running three today, made by S&S. Therefore its not too surprising they used seats that are pretty similar to their popular Screamin Swing rides, a real acute angle seat and a nifty lapbar that folds down from the side, and then can move up/down/forward and back to get a custom fit, I found the system to be pretty acommodating, then shoulder fingers lower down much like a TOGO train.

Once in the train, we make a quick turnaround out of the station, and the ride wastes no time getting you to the top of the lift hill. A turnaround at the top, then a freaky first drop, round a couple more traditional turns, excpet the banking all seems to be the wrong way leading to some pretty interesting ride forces. Halfway through the ride, the rides puts your car upside down and holds it there as for a good 3-5 seconds as you go through a turnaround. All in all it was a really good ride, nowhere near as bad as some would have you believe. I was most surprised with how smooh the ride was, and with little to no head banging. This coaster concept is a definite winner.

After trying out Steel Hawg, we start to make our way through the park, with our next stop at Hoosier Hurricane. Hoosier Hurricane is the parks oldest wooden rollercoaster. You board in a station two stories above the midway. You first go up one flight of stairs to a bridge that runs from the stairway, past the stairs down to the log flume station, then a bit further you have stairs that go up further to the Hoosier Hurricane station. The bridge is divided into three lanes by railings, and one outer lane feeds the log flume entrance, the other feeds the coaster entrance and the middle is the exit lane for both rides. You are expected to exit all the way to the bottom after either ride, and it seems like they have reinforced the railings to make this point clear.

We get up to the Hoosier Hurricane station, and the line is halfway down the second flight of stairs. When you get to the top, you go up a third flight to cross over the track, then you go back down to station level, get your wristband scanned and then choose a seat queue. I suppose they are supposed to admit riders from the line to the station between every cycle while the train is out on the course, but they were only admitting riders every 4 or 5 cycles, so the line would stand still and grow quite long, then they would seemingly admit everybody to cram into the station. We got lucky and got back car rides. We noted they were only running one train, and noted the train was in rough shape with several parts of the upholstery damaged, and the advertising logos on the sides had been removed. Lucky for us the ride still has the older style lap bars and no head rests. Its about as close to classic as your are going to get on a newer ride. We are soon dispatched and handslapping with those waiting in line is at least tolerated. You go up the lift hill, do a little S turn to the right then its a classic out and back layout all the way to the end of the peninsula and back. It's not a ride that's going to win any awards, it's a family ride that fills the role of "Classic amusement park roller coaster" We exit the ride and continue on.

Our walk next takes us through some games areas where I note that Cool Cash is now required to play arcade games. Cool Cash is the parks new cashless midway system, its a fairly agressive looking cash control system. At first blush I think its overkill for this type park, and a big waste of resources, but then I haven't seen the books to know if cash control is a big problem for the park.

We came to an alcove where we were saddened to discover the Air Crow (Flying Skooters) was closed, and Tigrr (Jet Star) had a pretty scary looking line, out in the unshaded heat. Cornball Express is in the area and its line is halfway down its long stairway. We were 'entertained' in the Cornball Express line by a pair of young kids who were having a spitting for distance contest, I kid you not. At the top of the stairs, WE just missed the cutoff for the next train, and I looked at the wristband scanner, which is also setup to honor Cool Cash Cards as payment for the ride. I was shocked to learn the cash price of a ride on Cornball Express was $8.00! I think the wood coasters are $8, steel coasters are $6, major flat rides are $5. It would be a very expensive park to visit if you were paying per ride. At $30, one trip on all the parks coasters would break you even, even faster if you were using a two-for-1 special, like we were.

We settle into the back seat, I get recognized in the station, but I never did get to meet up with the person because by the time we exited the ride, they were out of sight. I'm happy to see Cornball still has the traditional style lap bars. Cornball is much more agressive than Hoosier Hurricane and is the parks twister style rollercoaster, seemingly built in mid air above the kiddieland section of the park, it is anything but a kiddie ride. This ride has nice potent airtime moments and everything.

We then decide to bite the bullet and go ride Lost Coaster (of Superstition Mountain) hereafter shortened to LoCoSuMo. It's a full queue, its running one train, and its a slow loader at best. I think I clocked this thing at 96-120 PPH. So what you have is a popular low capacity ride. The queue is right next to their famous taco stand, and I think they pump the smell from the kitchens into the ride waiting area. They also feel the need to paint directional arrows about every 5' or less through the queue, nevermind the fact you don't have much choice with the railing and all.

This ride uses ne stop loading, the train pulls in, people get unloaded, the next group gets counted off, has wristbands scanned and enters. The trains are unlike anythign else you have every seen. The trains consist of two cars, both shaped like clasic mine cars. Each car has two benches the front bench faces backwards, the back bench faces inwards, so you are looking at each other Face/Off style, and nobody has a good look at the trackwork ahead. You sit down in a plush overstuffed cushioned seat, and fasten lapbelts. The two riders furthest from the car door have to slide in under the lapbar, like on classic trains of old. After you are loaded the operator lowers the other half of the lapbar, covering the other two riders, then they close and lock the car door, this action checks the lapbar so it can't come back up. A real simple mechanical system. The cars also have roll cages, and netting has been fitted to the rollcages and is secured to the car sides all the way around, so you can't stick anything outside the car, when the lapbar is lowered, the net flap for the doorway is fastened to the lapbar, so when the bar comes down, the gap above the door is filled in. They then tell you to keep your hands inside the car, as if I had a choice.

The train then rolls off the station area and around to the elevator. You get a dark ride scene and an introduction about how rickety the elevator is and how you shouldn't trust it. When you get to the top get ready for the wildest ride. It's a wooden coaster, but it is tunneled for at least half of the time, which means you can class it as a scenic railway, but the layout is all impossibly tight turns, including many hairpins turns, so its also a wooden wild mouse. But its not content to leave you with just sharp turns, it also like to pepper the ride with several short but sudden drops, even in the corners. The coaster took the place of a dark ride though a mountain, and it sitll has some dark ride stunts, sound effects, and all, but the insanely tight twisitng ride is the main feature. It's got laterals, it's got airtime, and I think the people who say its overly rough are wimps. For some reason, I don't think we'll ever see another coaster quite like this one. There is one part where you come out of the mountain and you are on fairly level track and slow down. You think you are at the end of the ride until you realize you are in back of the mountain. Just when you realize this you go down a tight twisting drop and the ride gives you one last dose before it lets you go. Wow! We have a winner!

After LoCoSuMo we walk the midway and realize the park is indeed quite crowded. Most of the flat rides have good size lines, you can't even get near Den of Lost Theives, which is no big loss beacuse I rode it at least a dozen times last visit when I was trying to wait out a rain shower. We headed all the way to the end of the midway, where I waited throgh a three cycle wait to ride Double Shot. At first it was almost a no-go as I was not even close to geting the buckle fastened on the seat I was originally assigned to, but the operator took one look at it and immediately moved me to another seat that had a much longer belt. (End seat, nearest the queue on the side looking right out at the lake) I am pleased to report the Double Shot still packs quite a mean punch here at Indiana Beach.

We then started walking back the other way on the boardwalk, and were heading to our car when the dive and jetski shows took our interest. I like how the dive tower is done up to look like a pirate ship. Hmm, too major amusement parks in Indiana, and both have high dive shows, is that a state law or something. The guy who did the high high dive wearing a flaming suit was a bit over the top, and the jetski guy was entertaing the fans down below doing all kinds of acrobatic stunts in the water. Rolls and flips on a jetski, no problem.

We took a break to get refreshed and get refreshments, then we re entered the park, after upgrading our parking space to almost right across from the gate, still three rows back of course. Back in the park, and the Water Swings were open, they were closed earlier. We took a ride on the Water Swings, its a Chance Yo-Yo built with a pier just big enough to load the ride, once the ride is loaded and the ride is at full speed, the chairs swing out well past the edge of the pier to great effect, particualrly since the Yo-Yo mechanism works very well on this particular example.

Next up was Splash Battle - its queue area as about ahlf full. Unfortunatley they only had two boats on. Each boat does seat four riders, two facing front, and the other two facing back. Riders get secured merely by a seatbelt and a small door across the opening of the boat. To make like interesting each rider has a water cannon, its a manually operated cannon, meaning the harder you crank, the more water pressure you get. The layout is prety basic, you go out of the station, make a right, go to the other end ot the ride, do a hairpin turn comee back to make a turn around right next to the station, on its second trip out you do a S- curve and go through a short tunnel complete with water curtain, you then travel a nice striaght path past the midway, where people can pay a quarter for access to a water canyon for a minute or so. Its also pretty simple, its basically a dark ride ride system, something that is time tested. Looking back behind the ride, the park must have 6 or 7 boats for the thing, which may be too many owing to how short the ride is, but clearly two boats is too few. Basically one is loading while the other is out on the course, so we never got the chance to interact with the other boat, and no one was interested in taking up battle stations on the land, so its a real neat idea, but it just didn't deliver.

Next stop, we noticed Air Crow (Flying Skooter) was running so we high tailed it over there. We are extremly glad the line was only a one cycle wait becuase of how poorly the ride is operated. I kid you not, the ride coms to a stop. Owing to the way the ride is designed, the seatbelts in the 10 birds have to be opened one at a time with a tool. So after taking his own sweet time unloading the ride, the operator goes to the gate. He then admits the riders for car 1, walks them out to the ride, gets them belted in, then comes back to the gate, gets the riders for car 2, walks them out to the ride, gets them belted in, and repeats for all ten tubs. It is an excruciatingly painful process. Then the ride starts, it last maybe 60 seconds, and snapping is forbidden, which is a shame becuase I really had to hold back or I would have been putting on an air show.

After Air Crow, we take another spin on Cornball Express, then head to Frankenstien's Castle. The Castle is a pay extra haunted house, it's $4 and worth every dime. We were about to go in when we realized we would be in the same group as a little kid who was clearly upset at just the mild frights in the lobby. We deicded to hang back in the arcade next door for about ten minutes, then came back. We bought tickets, and did learn the kid didn't make it into the castle, which is probably for the best. You are led into a waiting area where there are some coffins, one even says it has a vacancy. Everyso often a group is admitted to the house where you start in one of those falling elevator illusions, this one seems particularly weak. You do get the rules about not touching the props, keep walking forward, and no backtracking. They have done a lot to discourage backtracking by putting several one way doors throughout the castle. I recall Sally modernized this a few years ago, and the tabluex through the house really bears that out. There are no live actors, but there are several tablueax as you walk through the haunted house. That isn't to say it's lost its fun house charm. Its got a moving foor, a shakerboard, a tilt room, a hall of doors (can you find the right one?), a falling balcony, a suspension bridge, a fat mans misery where both walls come closer and closer together until they leave a narrow passageway, a darkened area with rat sound effects complete with 'mousetails' that swat at your legs. At one point you do go out on a balcony overlooking the midway, all the better to mess up the dialation of your eyes after you have gotten used to the dark. As I said its a real neat haunt. They have a Frankenstein animatronic out front doing bally for the haunt, and during part of the spiel he acts like he is tipping his hat, but his head comes off with his hat. If that image you see for free outside the haunt upsets your children, forget about going inside.

From Frankenstien, we go to the roof of Dogs and Suds to wait a good 20-30 minutes to ride Tigrr, your standard Scwarzkopf Jet Star. They had two trains running, each with two cars. They were designed to seat two each, put almost every car goes out with a solo rider, folks just odn't like riding in somebody else's crotch anymore. This year the park added automotive style retracting belts to the cars, which larger riders should not fear, remember they are supposed to be able to wrap around two riders. It's a fun old rare ride.

We then finished the coaster collection with a ride on Galaxi. Galaxi is neatly places under a water slide complex, we got real lucky on timing arriving at this one, so we only had to wait 10-15 minutes, again 2 trains, each seating up to 8 people. She tried to put Eric and I in the same seat, but that just wasnt happening. That said, its pretty much your standard Galaxi except for the setting. At this point its starting to get dark, we head back to Steel Hawg but decide we only have time for either Steel Hawg or LoCoSuMo.

We make a big mistake and chose LoCoSuMo. We do stop in the big gift shop on the way to LoCoSuMo, where we look around, and I settle on a DVD about the park as well as an IB Crow talking bobblehead. Its a neat promotion item, the box credits William Robinson. When you bobble the crow he recites a short commercial for the park ending with the famous tag line "Proving once again, There IS more than corn in Indiana!" It was marked down from $13.99 for $5.

We then joined a long full LoCoSuMo queue, at this time an older man in a maintenance uniform was running the ride. This is not a good thing, as he was even slower than the crew that was here earlier, not only that he was more concerned with yelling at people to get off rails, no running etc, instead of running the ride. I mean he could have done this in the dead time while the train was out on the course, but nope he would wait until the train was sitting their empty to go all Law Enforcer. That took entirely too long, at one point the whole queue of people were contemplating all standing on the handrails en masse just to totally tick the guy off, or send him over the edge. Then he got you into the car and he was real particular about where you put your feet, how you held onto the lap bar, don't turn your head to side, dont have fun," Ride starts. He was the perfect example of how one worker with a bad attitude can bring your entire attitude about a park crashing down.

From what I gathered from chatting up workers, the park is not having a gret season at all. "You came on the only busy day we have had all season!", they are spendng lots of money on infrastrcture like the cash control system that I think is a waste of resources, while trying to run the park on as few staff members as they can get away with. What that meant was that today, when the park WAS crowded, they were in no way prepared to handle the crowds.

Such is life, we relax and finish our park visit by having a nice relaxing gourmet meal in the Skyroom. Seriously, what is a gourmet restaraunt doing in a park like this. Veal eaters are used to being lucky to find one veal entree on a menu, they had like five. And its great food at that, I had a Veal Picatta dinner (entree, salad, veg, potato, rolls w/ apple butter, and a coke all for around $20). Not bad for in park dining.

After our dinner we headed back to our car, much later than we had scheduled to leve the park, but it just took that long to do everything with the crowds and poor park operations. What's worse? We have about a three hour drive to our hotel just outside of Louisville, KY. So we pulled into our hotel just around 1AM, grabbed the keys (they had them setting out all ready to go what with us being the last people to check in and all)

Holiday World tomorrow!

Watch for it!

TR: Harry Potter Exhibition at Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

Trip Report: Harry Potter Exhibition
Chicago Museum of Science and Industry
Chicago, IL
August 1, 2009

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This unusual weekend excursion started when a friend of ours invited us to go see the Harry Potter Expo up in Chicago. The cast of characters this time, is our friend Julie, my mom and me. Once we decided when to go, the trip planning involving the hotel and tickets took just a few minutes. For the hotel we chose the Homewood Suites as we had prior experience with them, and for three people we could get a nice suite for what two regular rooms would have cost elsewhere. The museum's online ticketing system was just as easy and we soon had 10:53 tickets for August 1st.

As I have been what my co-workers call, a PTO abuser, this summer with several litttle trips planned, I designed this one to not require any time off. The plan was simple, they would pick me up from work on Friday, two hours later we'd be in Indianapolis for dinner at Shapiros, and and we'd get to our hotel right around 9 or 10 pm.

They did pick me up from work, and we drove, perhaps 15 miles from my office when the car started to act up. By acting up, I mean the car just wanted to accelerate faster and faster, we verified the cruise control was off, the drivers foot was no where near the gas pedal and the car kept speeding up, stepping on the brakes we could get it down to about 50mph, but that was it. We attempted to exit I-74, and did manage to get the car stopped on the exit ramp, but not before mind altering visions of slamming into the cars ahead of us raced through our minds.

Great, now what? It seemed like it was 2 minutes to collect our thoughts, and we were just about to call AAA when the mircale occured. If you don't believe there are angels in the world, this might help you beleive. As I said not more than 5 minutes a van pulls up in back of us, the driver gets out and is wearing the uniform of a major auto maintenance firm. We tell him what happened, he takes a look under the hood and discovers one of the connectors for the cable from the gas pedal to the throttle had broken, effectively jamming the throttle in the fully open position. He perofrmed a quick short term fix that we were able to use to get the car down to a garage located just a bit off the exit. Their mechanic came out, and the two mechanics discussed it and we got the good news and the bad news. The good news is it is a relativley inexpensive fix, under $100 in fact, the bad news is he didn't have the parts in the shop at the time.

With that the guy who met us at the interstate exit showed us to a a car rental place located a few doors down, that rental place just happened to have 1 car left, and our new friend obviously had some dealings with them as he was able to negotiate some pretty favorable rates. The guy even helped us transfer the luggage from our car to the rental and then escorted us back to the interstate. Let me stress, this took a good 60-90 minutes of the guy's time, on a Friday night, coming home from work. Just proof that there are good people left in the world, or was it an angel, I mean for us to get just what we needed, out of the middle of nowhere. We even looked at the bright side, we'd be driving at night now, so no rush hour traffic to deal with.

So, we proceed to Indianapolis, and we do manage to make it to Shapiros around 7:40, which was extremely lucky as they close at 8:00. It's a cafeteria, so we knew as long as we were in the serving line by 8, we would be fine. I had a gigantic Ruben sandwhich, potato pancake, clam chowder, and rhubarb pie, does it get any better? Shapiros also does not have the word "small" in their vocabulary, unfortunately that also applies to your check. Dinner for two at a cafeteria - $35, ouch.

We proceeded on to Chicago, with me using my handy iPhone in "Maps" mode. It's not quite Garmin, but it works. I noted as we passed the exit to Indiana Beach that I'd be back there on Wednesday. A fuel and releif stop later, we were at the top of Indiana, about to head for the Skyway. I-94 is a toll road, and they hit you for the first toll (50 cents) right after you switch from I-65 to I-94. What ever happened to the big coin hoppers where you could easily toss your coins out the car window and move on? Now they have some big fancy electronic machine standing there, and the coin drop is a standard coin slot like on a vending machine. Not only that after you insert a coin it seems to take its own sweet time registering the coins.

Okay, now we are on some forsaken part of I-94. Okay, I just paid a road toll, why is the road in horrid condition, and there are little to no street lights to speak of. Before you actually get to the Skyway, they manage to hit you up for another toll, this time its $1.25 and they have a real attendant there to collect your money. Then we hit the Skyway and pay the big one, $3, to cross the bridge. We noted the toll collectors wear latex gloves. Overall we are back to being all smiles and making time when we happened to cross the Skyway just after the White Sox game let out. There must be 10 lanes here, all jammed up. Great now we are moving at about 5 miles an hour through the city, it can't get worse right? Well, we were in a lane that decided it should branch off and become a highway serving the western suburbs , we realized this fact after it was too late. Not a big problem, we used the Maps feature and plotted a route through town heading up Michigan Avene.

Google Maps was quite clear go up Michgan, then turn left onto Grant. Uhm, yeah, there is just one tiny problem. A huge Nordstroms store is standing where the road should be. So now instead of just one left hand turn, we have to go up two extra blocks, turn left, then over another two blocks, then zig zag our way through side street to get to the hotel. By this time it is after midnight, Chicago time. I get out of the car, and head to registration, which happens to be on the 6th floor. Registration was fairly painless, particularly when you are the last to arrive and they have all your stuff sitting out waiting for you. I head back downstairs and find the bellman is already loading the luggae cart, and the valet is about to take the car to wherever valet's hide your car. Overnight parking at this particular hotel - $42 a night. I've paid less than that on some hotel rooms!

We go to our suite on the 12th floor, and find it suitable with a living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, 2 tvs, and a sofa bed. Not much time is spent on ceremony before we get cleaned up, decide to set the alarm clock for 7:30, no better make that 7, no better make that 6:30. I thought I liked to pad in extra time. Good night for day 1.

Day 2 starts, not much to report of the early morning, we all got up sometime between 6:30 and 7:30, but the important thing was we all made it to the hotel breakfast room by 7:45. The breakfast room on 6 served a full hot breakfast buffet complete with eggs, bacon, saugage, home fries, fruit, cereal, as well as all the stuff you normally fine on hotel breakfast bars. Having 3G available I didn't really check into the WIFI situation, but the free breakfast was above average for a hotel.

Next we got tickets ready and headed to the museum. We had previously decided to drive as little as possible in Chicago, and make use of the town's well developed public transit system. Living in Cincinnati I consider myself a city dweller, but going to a real city like Chicago I always feel some cutute shock. One is a tranist system that is actually well thought out and useable. Bus timetables, well in Chicago they have timetables for off hours, otherwise it is simple "Every 7 minutes" or whatever the interval is. If that isn't good enough for you, you can pull out your iPhone and get up to the minute updates. "You are standing at the corner of Lake and State, at the SOUTH bound bus shelter" Followed by a list of all the busses that stop there, their destinations, minutes until their arrival, and even the serial number of the coach that will arrive. I want this for Cincinnati, not that we'd put out that kind of money.

In theory our hotel should have been perfect, just a half a block from a Red line train, from which we could easily transfer to a #10 express bus that goes all the way to the museum's front doors. We easily walk the half block early in the morning, and then decend the long, dark, decrepit stairway to the State and Grant station. This is clearly not the station they use for PR purposes. But inside the station lobby there is an attendant on duty, as well as some farecard machines and the turnstiles. Having prepared for this we each inserted a $5 into the farecard machine and bought a card. Then turn around, and run those cards through the turnstile. $2.25 was deducted from the card and we were admitted to a long thin hallway. We turned right to go southbound, noted the escalator only goes up, time for 2 more flights of stairs down to a rather nondescript butt ugly station. To be fair they may be doing some work here as there were construction walls up and wooden slabs placed over the floors.

In just a matter of minutes, a train arrived, and we boarded. I had looked at a system map and thought "we have to go two stations", so we ride for two stations, and I look out of the train windows and somehow we were like 4 stations down the line. We get out, befuddled, and there just happens to be a platform attendant standing right there. The only plaform attendant we'd see all weekend. Instead of asking the question I should have asked "How do I get to the #10 bus", I asked the seemingly right question "How do I get to State and Lake" (Where I planned on getting the #10 bus) He put us on a Northbound train for one station. We exited the train and were delighted to see escalators to guide us all the way up to the street. Here, we ran into another unexpected problem. The town was running some sort of marathon event the next day, which meant they were preparing the street and sidewalk - power washing and stuff like that. They were also boarding up quite a few of the subway entrances and the like. Namely the bus stop at Lake and State was closed, which led to us having to walk to the next stop, which was three blocks away, and was also right above the subway station where we turned around.

But on a good news/ bad news front we spotted others waiting at the stop who were also going to see Harry Potter so we knew we were inthe right place. One of those people had a Museum of Science and Industry staff shirt on. She offered us the advice that the #10 express bus is very unreliable in the mornings, and we should use the local (a #6). We boarded the local, inserted our cards and the bus farebox somewhow knew we were making a valid transfer and only charged a quarter. This bus turnd out to only be local up until we got to the Museum Campus where it became an express down Lake Shore Drive, and then resumed being a local around 47th street or so. Really the big difference is that it turnaround 1 block away from the museum. We walk the final block and then rest in the big bus pick up area in front of the museum. I note the big Chicago flags, and the mailboxes done up to look like R2D2.

The museum itself is a very classical Greek/Roman style building, and as I would learn dated back to the 1890's when it was part of the Columbian Exhibition, and later converted into the Museum of Science and Industry around the 1930s' Long tall columns line the front, and big lawn is in front of the building. At the time the lawn is sporting a big white tent that holds the Harry Potter exhibition. Anyway, you no longer walk across the lawn to get into the museum as ticketing has been moved to a tunnel underneath the lawn. Along the traffic circle are two small unassuming buildings with a revolving door that reads "Main Entrance", we enter and are presented with the choice of three flights of stairs or the elevator. We opt for the elevator, they only have one, but it is quite large.

At the bottom of the elevator, we come to the main entryway, clearly designed with the same traffic flow ideas Disney would discover. By that I mean the ticket windows are on the right side of the hall as seen by a person entering, followed by the restrooms, and then the escalator up into the musuem. An exiting patron would see the big gift shop on their right. The parking garage sits between this tunnel and the lawn above. It's actually a pretty efficent design. In the lobby is a free exhibit were one can walk alongside and through the Zephyr train, and for Harry Potter they have parked the flying Ford Anglica in the center of the lobby. It's sure to be the most photographed item in the exhibition, as its the only one in an area where photography is allowed.

Being a Saturday it was a pretty sizeable ticket line, and were releived when we asked the host at the start of the line if we even needed to wait in the line since we had presale tickets to see Harry Potter which included general admission as a benefit. She told us we could bypass the main ticket line and just zip right through the tunnel and up the escalator.

At the top of the escalator you are in what was the basement of the original museum, now its the first floor as they consider the tunnel to be the basement. The ticket taker is at the top of this escalator and you enter right into the a seating area for the museums food court. In reality you have the main museum building and two long arms stretching out to either side. They do some clever thigns like color code the stairwells.

Sometimes, some of the neatest exhibits are the ones that don't earn a spot on the museum guide they hand you ask you board the escalator. In the back of the food court seating area is one of those big displays where you watch a big ball bearing travel through a long twisty habitrail full of neat gimmicks - jumps, swirls, bells and the like. This one, though is themed as a "Trip to Switzerland" and so the big ball bearing rides an incline, a steamship a couple trains, stops in a phone booth, and travels past stylized scenes of Swiss villages and culture. Fun to watch, fascinating from a design standpoint, and even educational on a cultural level.

From there we took the next escalator up to what is the Main Floor. We decided to see how rigid they were being with the timed tickets for Harry Potter, the answer quite rigid. We looked around one of the big galleries off the center rotunda. Not much happens in the rotunda, they had a couple demonstrations going on in there but it is mainly a convenent meeting spot, and I imagine special events area. It is also the focal point where you realize the museum itself is also an exhibit, particularly for fans of art deco. We entered the trainsportation hall where, amongst other things they have a big train engine sitting there and you can climb up and go inside the engine. Overhead they have some planes, including a Boeing 727 you can tour. The back half had the olbigatory model railroad display.

We looked around here until it was an acceptable time for us to return. The museum opened at 10, we had tickets for 10:53, and it was acceptable to return two time slots in front of yours in order to start the process. So at 10:39 we approched the area. They had a section of the hallway around the escalators and the big front doors designated as the Harry Potter waiting area. We couldn't actually join the formal waiting area until 10: 46, but in the informal waiting area you could, for an extra $5, pick up a handset for the audo tour. It seems like every museum of any size is adding these audio tours, I mean they are a good extra money maker once the initial audio program is devised and the hardware is purchased. The idea is the visitor can move at their own pace, and listen to a recorded narration about any exhibit, in any order, at any pace, as often as they want. The audio narration can be much more engaging than boring signs that probably won't get read. We bought the aduio tour, and the attendant told us we could listen to the introduction and instructions for using the player by dialing 99 on the cell phone looking device, and the Ford Anglica in the museum lobby's narration is 46. The device also had a neck strap so you didn't have to carry it the whole time.

At the appointed time we were able to move up to the real waiting area. Here they have a huge Harry Potter banner whose main feature is that it contains a digital clock that tells the "Official Harrry Potter Time" A host meets you at this point and goes over all the usual rules and safety information, you know the stuff about no eating, drinking, smoking, photography, re-entry and the fact there are no restrooms inside the exhibit. To fill the time she asked Harry Potter trivia question being careful, as she state to stay away from book 6 and 7 content. When it came closer to our time she instructed those with yellow tickets (which would have come out of the ticketing machines at the museum) to be prepares to hand over their tickets upon entering, and those with white tickets (which were printed at home) to fold them a certain way and hold them in front of your chest just like a mug shot number. They would be scanned as you entered the exhibit, and I'm almost surprised she didn't infer the scanner was a mahic wand or some other such magical device.

When your time comes up, the front doors of the museum are opened, and you exit out the main front doors of the museum, and here they have errected a tent tunnel to take you from the museum to the tent out in the front lawn that has the actual exhibition. The tunnel willl protect you from the wind and the rain, but not the heat. While in the tunnel we go down the front stairs, around the bend and then come to an intersection. To the left is the passageway of being exiting, to the right is the alternate accesible entrance, straight ahead is the exhibit entrance. We go through a set of doors into the climate controlled main exhibition tent.

Once inside the main tent you gather in the first preshow room, the main features here are a stool with the Sorting Hat sitting on it. You are given the big welcome to Hogwarts and a few people are chosen at random to be sorted. The sorting hat does a small sorting hat song to start and I find its a very accomodating sorting hat. They asked each child which house they would like to be in and it just so happened the sorting hat agreed with them everytime. After a few people have been sorted the doors open up into the second preshow room. In here when you enter there are several tall narrow screens showing the movie posters for the various films, then the doors are closed and you watch an introductory montage of favorite Harry Potter scenes.

Just as the video ends a panel opens up to your left and you find yourself walking alonside the Hogwarts Express while being greeted by a call of "First Years?, First Years this way!" Around to the right and you walk a small hallway with some stationaty and some moving pictures until you come to the Fat Lady Portrait. Here you will start seeing the cues for your aduio tour and you enter the museum galleries by stepping throuh the Fat Lady Poortrait. Your first stop, why the Gryfindor common room of course, on one side you see the common room with its notice board, and on the other side a part of the dormitory, specifically Harry and Ron's beds. Scattered through the area you see robes, casual wear, various textbooks, Neville's plant, Hermoine's Time Turner, the golden egg with the clue, the Weasley sweaters. This exhibit has many more audio tour cues than I have seen in other exhibitions. In most cases its a member of the prop, costume, or set department giving some annecdotal story about the item. For example they had one about the bed spreads saying they were trying to design some zodiac themed spreads when they found the ones they actually used as a stock item in a store and thought they looked even better for the scene than what they were coming up with.

Another item they talked about and displayed was the Mruders Map, saying how it was one of the more expensive props if only because it was damaged so easy and kept needing to be replaced.

After touring the Gryffindor common room, its time to go to class. The next gallery has tableuax from various Hogwarts classes. You start with Divination and can see the little tuft chairs, the textbooks, and the tea cups, and if you look in the teacup you can see the grim make out of tea leaves. Over at the Potions setup you eee racks on the wall full of potion making kits, Snape's robes, a bench with various potion making implements. A good portion of the galley is taken up by Defense Against The Dark Arts, as it should be since there have been like 6 different teachers, so they have key props like the Lockhart complete works set, the bogarts wardrobe and jack in the box, items from Lockharts wizards duel with Snape, and more. At the other end of the room is Herbology the ceiling area is made to look like you are in a green house, props and plants sit on benches. At one end of the area is an interactive exhibit where you too can pull out a baby mandrake and listen to it whine. For some reason that's not entirely clear to me they put the Deloris Umbridge's office set in this gallery, where you can see the pink everything, the cat plates, and even the special punishment quill, and parchment.

From here you go into the third major gallery section, along one side they have the Quidditch display, here you can see the trunk with its Quidditch equipment, various models of high performance broomsticks, game uniforms, team flags, particulalry those if Ireland and Bulgaria which figure into the Quidditch World Cup, and some of the fan memorabillia including the Omnioculars. In the center of this exhibit is an area that looks like a carnival game. You step up to the counter, pick up a quaffle, and attempt to through it through the goal hoop. They have three target hoops set at differing hights and distances. The hops themselves are 'enchanted' to sound both the scoring bell and crowd cheering noises whenever a goal is made. Under the goal hoops is a green turf playing surface, built at an angle so the quaffles roll back down to the counter on their own. Yes, I tried my Quidditch skills out. only took me two tries to get the furthest target, and I comments that Six Flags would charge you for this.

On the other side of the galley you have Care of Magical Creatures, featuring Hagrid's hut. First you pass the hippogrif before entering the hut. Inside the hut everything is Hagrid sized, and you can see such props as the Monster Book of Monsters, the umbrella which conceals the wand Hagrid really isn't permitted to carry, and the egg of Nobert the dragon. While in the hut visitors are encouraged to sit on Hagrids chair. It's a set up like at the carnival where you sit in a gigantic chair to have photos of you taken that make you look like a kid again. Except here the chair isn't quite as big as its carnival counterparts, and you aren't allowed to take pictures. Most folks sat in the chair briefly and were thinking "What's the big deal" until the attendant instructed them to sit all the way back in the chair so that your back is right up against the seat back. Now try to ge out it when your legs barely even extend past the seat cushion. As you leave Hagrid's you pass briefly by the Forbidden Forest and see a centaur and the giant spider.

This is a nice transition into the next gallery which is the dark side of Harry Potter. Here you see Quirrel's turban and props like a chess piece and the flying keys from the first movie, a petrified Collin and his camera, as well as the diary complete with basilisk fang stuck into it from the secodn movie, the dementors from the third movie complete with a high power ultra cold fan set behind the Dementors. You see the house elves, the Death Eaters costumes, the tombstone from book 4, the Dark Mark up in the sky. The audio tour mentions that some of the creatures whose manquins you see here, the manequins are never actually seen in the movie, its all computer graphics, but the manequins are used in rehearals to determine what the shaodws should be like, and so that the actors get a feel for where the character would be so they can 'interact' appropriately.

As you leave this gallery you enter another trainstion hallway where the four house banners can be seen and you must be right outside the Great Hall as you can see all the wooden cases with the educational decrees. The last gallery is the Great Hall complete with the candles that appear to float overhead. Down the center you have the banquet table loaded with Harry Potter food, and on one side you have a case of the novely products that may have come from Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, as well as some of the Weasley creations, the skiving snackboxes take on a particularly prominent role here. On the other side you have all the fancy robes and stuff from the Yule Ball, in yet another area are the props like the Triwizard cup and the Goblet of Fire.

From the Great Hall you go down another Hogwarts hallway where the portraits on the wall are all cheering you, before you empty out into the gift shop which is themed to Diagon Alley. They had the usual t-shirts, mugs, robes, hats, etc. I was surprised how much of it was just Harry Potter stuff, almost none of it made special reference to the exhibition. They had wands for all budgets, sorting hats, toy props, games, action figures, all the way up to fine jewley and writing implements based on the movie, then up to cels from the movies, and replica quality souveniers, with some very high price tags. Of course you had the case where you could buy all the books, DVDs, and sountrack albums. I looked at a Maruders Map, but I wasn't about to give $45 for one. Get your Harry Potter merchanside now, its your only chance, its not sold in the other museum shops, and there is no re-entry once you leave the store. Once you leave the store, you go through another doorway (that locks behind you) back into the tent tunnel which guides you back to the front stairs of the museum and guides you back into the main museum building. A kiosk located just inside the museum serves as an aduio tour return area. I must say I really enjoyed that exhibit, and that was the main reason we were here, but now lets see what we can see in the rest of the museum.

We next head through a few galleries on the second floor, the thing that interested me the most in the section was a table with several objects on it, you could move the objects around and the table kept track of where everything was. The main reason we went this way is the signs advertised flight simulators. We got to the end of the wing and then started down into an exhibit about the Navy. On the ramp down they have models of famous warships of old then you board a mockup of an aircraft carrier. You can walk around the aircraft carrier and learn about the various stations, look through the periscope, and things like that. About halfway through you come to the flight simulators. They are purely optional and upon taking the path to them I learn they are also $5 extra.

Not too bad, I pay the $5 get a ticket and enter the line. The area housing the simulator is made to look like, not to surprsingly the deck of the aircraft carrier. I quickly learn they have two simulator pods, the bad news is one of them is out of service. I see a line of maybe ten people in front of me and think thats not too bad, until I realized most of them wanted to fly solo missions, they one had one simulator running, and the cycle time is about five minutes. Yikes. There also isn't that much to do while you wait, they have a camera inside the pod showing the facial reaction of the pilot, but thats not that interesting, neither is watching the pod move around. It does score points for being able to do full barrel rolls, however.

After waiting nearly an hour, which was entirely too long for my first ever visit to such a large museum, I am being handed an empty cash box looking thing to place any loose articles. The good news is the operator takes the box and sets it on the control console while you ride, and its in full view of those waiting to ride, so I suppose that is as secure as you can hope for. After relieving you of loose articles they show you to the pod. I found the cieling of the pod to be very low, so I had to contort myself to even get into the pod, but once in I was greatly relieved to learn the lap belt and shoulder harness were easily secured. You then get a crash course in flying a fighter jet. You have a joystick with numerous buttons. You have a trigger which fires your main weapon, a machine gun, and you are told you have unlimited bullets for it. On top of the stick there are three thumb buttons, with room for a fourth that is blanked out. One of the buttons is your accelerator (thruster), another drops your missles (limit 40) (I thought he seaid 4 which sounded reasonable, but 40?), the third button enables barrel rolls. If you don't press it in the pod will just tilt to the sides when you move the stick to the sides, this allows you to turn, holding in the third button and moving the stick to the side performs rolls. You also need to get used to the concept of pull back to climb, push forward to go down. On the roof of the pod on your other side is the camera equipment and an ejection seat button which will instantly end your experience. Of note, the pod has two seats and two sticks, if you have a partner, one pilots and one guns.

I was told my objective is to fly to the enemy base, and to look at the arrow in the upper corner which will guide me there. Oh, and knock out any enemy aircraft along the way, or of course you can just have fun. With that the pod door is locked, the timer set for 3:30 and the unit started. I did about as well as I do on most flight sims, which is to say not very good. Had the line been shorter I might have thought it was a real cool experience, as it was I was more concerned with how much time I just wasted.

We exit the Naval exhibit and head down the stairs to the german submarine exhibit. Here I learn that, yet again, additional tickets are required to board the submarine, oh yeah I can go up and look at it, and tour the exhibits leading up to the sub, but to actually board, thats $7 extra. I would have had no trouble paying that $7 except I was told they had exhausted the days supply of tickets an hour earlier. I just HAD to do that flight simulator, didn't I?

On my way out of the submarine exhibit, I spot another one of those cool things that isn't on the map. A Mold-A-Rama machine!!!!! Man, I have not seen one of these in at least 15 years! I quickly fished out $2 and inserted it into the machine. No sooner had the second dollar bill entered the machine that the toy factory under glass started its show. First the mold squeezes together, then the mold is filled with molten plastic, then the plastic filled mold is filled with air, then after it has had time to form into a nice solid, and cool down a little bit, meaning enough to stay solid and keep its shape, not cool enough to touch, the mold opened back up showing me a battleship grey submarine. A scraper arm scraped the modl off the injection heads and send it into the payout chute below. I knew enough about these machines to let the toy sit in the chute a few minutes before actually trying to touch it. Cool, I now have a Mold-A-Rama toy. No since the machine makes submarines, couldn we not fill it with yellow dye?

We next head through an area dedicated to the circus complete with a large scale model animated big top, then an even bigger circus train. That was nifty to watch, mesmerizing. After that we headed to the cafeteria for lunch. A big chunk of the 1st floor is taken over to food service now with an active cafeteria, a disused cafeteria, a coffee bar, and a vending area. Its scramble service where they have several stations (grill, deli, pizza, entree, etc) where you go and get food, then take it all to one central paypoint. So we scrambled and I wound up with a double cheeseburger. That was a pretty efficient operation.

After lunch, we headed to the Coal Mine. The Coal Mine is one of their oldest exhibits, yet its one of their big headliners. We joined the line and were promptly informed it was a 40 minute wait, and the coal mine tour was 30 minutes, so we were looking at a 70 minute investment. The rest of the group decided they would rather see other things, but since I missed the Submarine, I wanted to see one of their famous exhibits. To get an appreciation in the middle of the rear quadrant of the second floor hallway they have a big mining derrick right in the middle of the hall, and you can even walk all the way around it. The line starts out level and was wrapped halfway around the derrick, there was one slightly interesting part where you go through a little building and view a cutaway section of earth showing you different rocks and what they are mining for. When you get to the rear of the derrick you climb up several fights of stairs that are made to look like you are climbing up the derrick. They have a couple trivia questions and a movie to watch while in the queue. At the top of the derrick when you are even with the 3rd floor mezzanine there is an alternate entrance to the mine, but its built where even it involved a few stairs. I don't think the mine is ADA compliant, and the alternate entrance is for groups and member express tickets, reading the sign I note the member express pass program is not availalable on weekends, AKA when it might actually be useful.

About every 10 minutes apart the big horn on the derrick sounds and another group is wecomded to the tour. At the point you pass a time clock, and a tag board that would provide a quick way of glacing to see who is in the mine. At this point you are loaded into an elevator. Now, being a them park fan and a huanted house fan I am dubious of any use of elevators like this. However I think this one is a real honest to goodness elevator simply because with the full derrick in view there is no other place for you to get out while up on 3. Not that much space on 2 either, particularly given what happens shortly after you get off the elevator, Can't be one the first floor either as it is already full of exhibits. I almost wonder if there is another secret floor between 1 and 2 that actually houses the mine.

While riding down the elevator you are informed that this is not unlike actual mine elevators, except for the fact it has walls, a ceiling and a door. We are shown how there are several rows of chains run across the top of the car, miners would grab onto those for dear life, and shorter miners would grab ahold of larger miners. Oh and there wasn't any light either, at that point all the lights in the elevator go out until we reach the mine level. Upon exiting the elevator you take two quick left turns and are then shown the rotary lift. Here you see a row of mine carts loaded with coal one at a time advance forward onto the rotary lift where it is turned over so the coal dumps out onto a conveyor belt which runs to the derrick. We are told "We miners have very simple names for things - we call them what they do! You rode down on the Man Lift (it lits men), and the coal is dumped by the rotary lift. The coal runs into a second hopper which is used to counterbalnce the man lift, as one goes up the other comes down. We are told a little bit about mine dangers. Coal dust, which not only causes black lung but is also highly flamable, and water which could flood a mine at any time. So they have sump pumps which pump dirty mine water up to the surface, and they pump clean water back down for drinking, eating, bathing, fire firghting, and keeping the walls wet to keep coal dust down. We are informed that this demonstration had been run at 1/5th normal speed.

We then go up a flight of stairs and go to an area where we talk about methane gas, the mining industry's silent killer. In our homes it is odorized, in a mine not so much. We also learn that in the past children would have been put to work in the mine, our guide called them Minor Miners which was a term he used when he grouped them to the front at all the stations. We also learned miners get paid by the ton, not the hour, so if the mine is still you aren't getting paid. We learned about severl methods of detecting methane gas: small animals (effective but gave many false positives which led to unneeded mine shut downs, the safety lamp, which while the color of the flame could provide light and tell you if danger was nearby - was also fragile and once broken the open flame + coal dust could start a fire. Up to modern digital sensors. We also learned miners had to buy all their own gear, so while the digital meters were much safer, they were also much more expensive than the safety lamp, so the safety lamps persisted in many areas until they were banned outright.

Safety orientation over, a strange orange train arrives, you baord what is called the Man Trip (It takes Men on Trips, and yes they mean Men, women were considered bad luck in a mine) We start to board the man trip (two cars, each with two benches along the long sides of the car facing the middle. At first everybody leaves room for their personal space, but then our mine guide (complete in harness and other safety gear) exhorts us to keep packing more people into the cars. "Cars like this would carry many more people, so keep loading in, you don't make any money until we start mining" We continues to load the cars until just about every square inch of bench was used with people seated tightly against each other, then the car doors were locked, forming complete cages around us with tight grillework. "These tunnels are dark and narrow so don't stick anything outside" We are then driven through the mine in the Man Trip, stopping one to view a demonstration on how the roofs of the mine tunnels are braced, then we contine on to the other end of the man trip ride. "Take everything with you, we will not be returning to the man trip"

We then go into an area where various mining methods are demonstrated, the oldest being the simple lie on your pack and swing with a pick axe, while runners run ahead with explosives to clear new tunnels ahead of you. We were then shown some early mining equipment, the downside is the machinery was incredibly loud (Most miners lost 70% of their hearing in the first 8 months on the job) We also learned they mined the mine in a checkerboard like pattern which left ample support to try to prevent the dreaded collapse, but meant they only got 50% of the coal out. We then went to another area were we learned about the longbore drilling which was a big machine that could get about 90% of the mine cleared, however they were extremely expensive, so they were only used in the most coal rich mines. We got a demonstration of this machine, again slowed down to 1/10th normal speed this time. We go through another mine tunnel and come out in an office area. HEre they talk about modern mining, computer supervision, other uses of coal (cosmetics, diet products, toothpaste, etc) where coal minding is still a big business, and a comical demonstration of steel toed shoes. Oh, and you get to pass around a chunk of raw coal. After this it's, and now this is the only mine you wil ever exit by going DOWN stairs. You come out on the first floor in the back of the disused cafeteria area.

I made my way to the center of the first floor to the gigantic restrooms. These are noteworthy for their sleek modern appearance, use of indirect lighting, but the main feature is that when you go in there is a stainless steel wall you think is there as a privacy shield, but on the other side of it, there is a narrow ledge, and a channel you can put your hands into. Depending on where you insert your hands into the machine, you either get water, soap, or hot air. Very slick and modern. I then return to the upper level.

I next go through the Old Chicago street scene, and note the old ice cream parlor still operates. In another area, there is an area that shows you how the internet works - by seliing you an RFID necklace for $1, which then allows you to create an avatar in the exhibits, and have your avatar follow you from station to station. Further back they have a whisper room you get yourself and a buddy to stand by the two funnels and you can whisper to each other across the room. In another area there is a room that shows presentations about earth, using what appears to be a shperical shaped television.

Down on the lower floor, I toured an area about farming, and wow a second Mold-A-Rama machine, this time a green tractor. I later found out that had I toured the model railroad to the end I could have gotten a train and had I taken the long walk to the space exploration area a fourth mold a rama was available. I then toured the usual fun with physics area, an area about old firefighting equipment, and a fairland castle dollhouse that must be famous in Chicago.

By that time, it was time for the musuem to close so I collected Mom and Julie, we headed back to the tunnel, toured the gift shop, then headed out.

There was a line for the elevators back up to the street, and I notice they have wisely put farecard machines there so you can have your fare prepaid. Benefits of being in a town that values its mass transit system. We exited the building and saw an ice cream stand I coudl swear was no there earler, and then headed to the bus shelter where bus after bus was pulling up to take people back to the main downtown loop area. It would have been a fast trip if not for the traffic tie up on Lake Shore Drive. It was a standing room only crowd on the bus, and comical was a husband/wife or girlfriend/boyfirend combo where the man sat and made thewoman stand THEN had the audacity of asking the woman to try to read the map. Yep, he got the if looks could kill stare. A quick ride back into town, then back into the subway, then onto a very packed red line train. We got back to our station to learn the up escalators were broken. It took about all of any energy Mom had left to make the flights of stairs up to the street.

We came outof the subway by the Webber Grill. Sure it was almost an hour wait, but it was Saturday night, and it was right there. It was also very very good, well worth the wait. Your dinner cooked in an open show kitchen, purportedly on a Weber grill, and the big come on? Fresh roasted corn on the cob. Man that was good.

We then returnedto our hotel, where I contemplated, and failed yet again to get to Navy Pier. In the morning, we hit the breakfast bar again, allowed the bell captain to haul our bags down to the street, and took the long, but thankfully uneventful car ride back to Cincinnti. Okay, so we stopped at Shapiros again for lunch. (I order meatloaf, I think they gave me the entire meatloaf), and also a stop at the Hollywood Casino.

All in all a fun way to spend a quick weekend with friends.

Next up Costervile Con 2009

Watch for it.

TR: Strickers Grove - 6/21/09

TR: Strickers Grove
Ross, OH
June 21, 2009

Every year on Father's Day, our church has their annual parish picnic at Strickers Grove. Since the park is only open 2 or 3 times a year, it made sense to go to the park for the day and invite some coaster friends. I invited Dave and April, and April invited some friends and soon we had a nice size subgroup of coaster nuts at the party.

Owing to a set of circumstances where we did everything in about the least logical order, we arrived to the park around 2pm. Admission, parking, soft drinks and beer were all free. So we helped ourselves to all of the above and then headed back to the Tornado.

It was a walk on wait for the Tornado, and we wound up taking our first ride in seat 7. I don't know, the Tornado seems epecially sluggish this year, maybe its too early in the season for it, but the ride was just a big meh.

That didn't stop us from taking two more rides on Tornado, one of those in seat 9. I reach for the seatbelt, and its almost as bad as on Thunder Run, at SFKK. I had to work at that seatbelt and the operator commented that, yes, the belts are tighter in the back seat. You know how those lift latch buckles are pretty wimpy when you apply any real force to them, when we went down the ejector drop, my buckle took the path of least resistance and popped right open. I know I have had more seatbelt failures on rides that use those lift latch stytle buckles.

After Tornado, we went and had some rides on the Flying Skooters. Yes, they aren't Knoebels, they aren't even on par with the ones Kings Island heatlessly ripped out, but they aren't bad either, and they don't have a no snapping rule. After several Flying Skooters rides, we took a spin on the train ride to see if there was anything interesting in the remote reaches of the park. There wasn't. We finished up the first ride session with a ride on the Ferris Wheel, which is now sporting retracting seatbelts.

Next up was the big pot luck dinner. The church supplies the burgers, hot dogs, brats, metts and roast corn, and the people bring all the sides and deserts pot luck style.

After the dinner, we took a few more rides on the Flying Skooters, the Tornado, and yes, even the obligatory Teddy Bear coaster ride. Just when we commented on how unusual it was for a PTC train to have a solid side with no openings, a kid proceeds to manage to exit to the wrong side of the station.

After having our fill of Strickers, we went to Kings Island. On the way there we stopped to look at a nondescript office building that houses The Gravity Group. Once at the park, we head straight to Diamondback and using the single rider line we are all on in less than 10 minutes. I love Diamondback, the airtime, the smoothness, the setting, the pacing, everthing. The ride broke down shortly after our first ride. Not a problem, we take a Graters Ice Cream break, by which time the ride is running again, and we manage three or four more rides on it before park close.

It was just the trip back home at that point.

TR: Cedar Point - 7/13/09

TR: Cedar Point
Sandusky, OH
July 13, 2009

Cast of characters: I went to the park with my cousin Rick, he had never been to Cedar Point before which made for an interesting day. To give you his profile he is not the hard core coaster maniac, and hates spin rides, but likes seeing the shows, playing the games, eating the food, and yes riding the rides.

Getting there is half the fun: WE traveled up from Cincinnati the night before opting to follow Googles advice and take I-75 to US-6 all the way to the Causeway. Stop at Cracker Barrel was fine, those 4 miles on I-75 around mile marker 160 where we traveled 10mph at most was not. Note to AT&T users, Sandusky seems to be very spotty for AT&T service (iPhone users beware) For example signal was fine at the park and at Max and Ermas on 250, but at the Howard Johnson on US6 right by the Causeway, nada, nothing, and no in room WIFI either. Talk about roughing it.

Monday mornng - stopped at the McDonalds on the Causeway for a slightly overpriced McDonalds breakfast. Ate it while going over the causeway.

It would figure this would be the year I did not get the platinum pass, so its $10 to park the car, and then be shown to a parking space by a parking attendant that has a death wish. They waved us forward and then when we were making the turn they jumping in front of us and signal stop. I guess that one car coming in from the Chausee was more important.

We enter the park taking advantage of the Ohio Lottery promotion - a losing Ohio Lottery ticket is worth $7 off, so that made the gate $38, and half of parking meant I spent $43 vs. the $75 it would have cost to upgrade my KI Gold to Platinum. Entered the park to "God Bless America" playing in the background.

Enter the park, and I head directly to TTD so I can confirm that yes, I still can't ride TTD. I'm not too suprised or upset, as that is not news, but there is hope, I could get the two ends of the buckle on the tester to touch but not to fasten. TTD wasn't open yet anyway, so over to Magnum.

Magnum was a total walk on, in fact we walked all the way on to row 1.3 AKA the Ejector Seat. Magnum seems to have gotten a great new paint job this season, and the ejector seat was ejecting in fine form. Massive airtime on this Arrow masterpiece. Rick's review was that it had "too much airtime" Is that even possible? Where did I go wrong? What's wrong with the kid? He further explained the ride was very painful due to his legs and the safety bar getting to know each other real well.

Next up was Gemini - another walk on, only blue side was working but I had delight in looking up to find the "Track Trim Brake Open" light lit, "Special when lit!". Gemini is not the airtime producer that Magnum is, but the ride is no slouch either. I don't remember the final helix being quite that aggressive before, it really fools you as the rest of the ride is so mellow.

Folow that up by, wait Mine Ride isn't open yet. I take a ride on Skyhawk but Rick sits it out. I walk all the way through the empty queue and right into a chair on Skyhawk. I note the caribeaner and eyebolt safety has been replaced by a more conventional length of seatbelt. I'm real happy I had no trouble getting onto Skyhawk as I really enjoy the S&S swing rides.

I exit Skyhawk and note that those coin operated strongboxes you store your stuff in are up to $2, for a single use! Moving back to Mine Ride, its a 2 train wait for the front, and after the usual contortions involving crossing your ankles and folding your legs under the seat I was able to ride. What more can I say, it's Mine Ride. I start to get the impression Rick is not caring much for Cedar Point.

We continue our way around the park with a walk on ride in the back seat of Mean Streak. I'm glad they have the longer seatbelts on Mean Streak, and hey I don't think Mean Streak is near as bad as people make it out to be, particularly if you remember to lean forwards a little bit. In more odd news, Rick enjoyed Mean Streak. Then again I prepared him by telling him it made Son of Beast look good, its all in the perspective.

We headed over to Maverick and decided to come back later instaed of wait 90 minutes, let's see if we can knock any other rides out of the way before we start the long tiring coaster waits.

We take the walk down the Frontier Trail, for some reason I don't think I remembered the petting zoo before. We got towards the front of the park, and well you should guess that if I couldn't fit on TTD, I didn't have a chance on M Force, but I tried the tester anyway just to make it official. I advised Rick he should really try to ride this while we were there. I offered to make a run of the spin rides while he rode.

We wound up not even walking all the way to Mantis, with a line overflowing the queue area, and knowing how painful that wait is, we passed to come back later.

We next wound up waiting 15-20 minutes to ride Iron Dragon, I got the bad feeling the crowd had caught up. We rode in the back seat, and I wonder why this ride didn't get the Arrow train seatbelt treatment like Top Gun / Flight Deck did. Rick liked the second part of Iron Dragon, so he's starting to warm up to the park. Rick assumed Wildcat would ride like a Galaxi or Zyklon, and didn't want any part of waiting 15-30 for it.

We decided to check on Raptor so we wound up taking the Sky Ride (walk on) to the front of the park, and Raptor was still posting about a 75 minute wait. We looked at Demon Drop, (45 minutes), and after Rick saw Demon Drop run he was like "No way in ____" We took a look at the skill games, and wound up riding the Space Spiral. It was a "Wait till the car returns" wait for Space Spiral, they were only running the lower deck, and Rick really enjoyed the view from Space Spiral.

We next waited 30 minutes to ride 12E (Disaster Transport) I note they have now permanently cut off the first 2 section of queue house and moved the entrance further down by the exit. They seem to have replaced the stupid 3D glasses person with a night novelties person. Yeah kids, enjoy those night novelties for the 15 or so minutes you are in that dark room. I bet the rides crew appreciates not having to sweep hundreds of pairs of discarded 3D glasses off the brake run as well. I kind of like Disaster Transport, and Rick seemed to like it was well, he just thought it was short. He commented "All the rides here seem short!"

We started to Wicked Twister, but then had to make a run, I rode Matterhorn while he took care of business. For some reason, I don't recall seatbelts on Matterhorn before. After Materhorn we took a while to walk through the arcade. Rick (27) is just old enough to appreciate some of the older games in the back of the arcade, and I really liked the row of working antique pinball machines I was intruiqed by the mechanical tank driving/shooting game, they even had two machines, but neither of them liked any of my quarters.

After leaving the arcade, we headed to Midway Market for some food as it was about 2pm. Midway Market seems to be the deal at only $12 a person for unlimited chicken, meatloaf, pizza, pasta, tacos, burgers, sides, salads, soups, and an awesome desert bar with hand dipped ice cream. Midway Market was doing quite a brisk business.

Rick wanted to let dinner digest, so we cuaght the "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" show at the Centenial. Nice looking theater, I like the fact the cast does meet and greets after the show. Oh yeah, and the show wasn't bad either.

After the show we paid the price for Midway Market, and let me warn you, do not under any circumstances use the restrooms by Raptor exit. Those rank right up there in my worse amusement park bathrooms list.

Speaking of Raptor, it was time to wait 45 minutes to learn I coud not ride Raptor anymore. That was depressing, I didn't try the tester as I had ridden Raptor before. Rick could have ridden, barely, but he complained his harness was way too tight and wound up not riding also.

We next headed to Blue Streak, and I was glad to find the new longer belts here as well. I didn't expect much as rick took the walk on ride in seat 2.1, but let me tell you seat 2.1 was delivering the airtime like nobody's business, I almost thought I was on the return run of Voyage, it was delivering air like a mad coaster.

Next up was Cedar Downs, well Rick made it to the boarding gate, but when he saw the ride run his 'I hate spin rides' alarm went off, and I wound up riding Cedar Downs without him. His loss, I really love the ride. Cedar Downs holds a special place for me because I rode it with both my parents.

At this point, Rick expresses an interest in riding TTD, he even chides me "I'll get to ride a coaster you can't" "Good for you, I'll go ride some spin rides" It wiped the smile off his face when the test seat rejected him as well. We went and took a walk on ride in the front of the back car of Corkscrew. Hey, it's Corkscrew not much to say here. We noted the Magnum queue looked half full now, and I showed him the Paddleboat Excursion.. If you have not ridden the Paddlewheel Excursion, its a nice laid back ride that is in a very similar vein to Jungle Cruise at that famous chain of parks. Well, the Jungle Cruises jokes may not be quite as corney as Paddlewheel Excursion, but I think its a toss up.

From Paddlewheel Excursion we backtrack to Wicked Twister, taking time out to go out and put our feet in the sandy beach on the way. Wicked Twister provided another double elimination at the test seat. Rick proceeded to play some skill games while I rode MaXair. I thnk I got the better end of the deal, and MaXair is way better than Delirium.

Returning to the main midway, we started to head back to Millenium Force for Rick's benefit but wound up taking in the ice show instead. We are both suckers for an ice show. I was really glad to see their ice show is much different than the one at Kings Island. It was really a good ice show, in our showing we got the added pleasure of having this dude in the back row who was standing up during the show, singing along (loudly and badly) to the songs, and heckling the skaters. To the point where at one point half the audience was staring at him. The ushers did something to take care of the situation.

Upon exting the Ice Show, we observed the Dodgems, and realized, "Hey, these don't look half bad" We waited 3 cycles and we were riding the Dodgems, and hey these aren't bad at all.

From the Dodgems, Rick got the bad news at MF, and we boarded the train ride. Train ride took us right back to Maverick, so that was convenient. Maverick was still posting about a 75 minute wait, but 45 minutes later we were in the station, if not for some downtime, we would have been out in less than the 65 minutes it actually took us. I'm just happy both of us, mainly me, are able to ride Maverick. Maverick is, without a doubt the best coaster in the park. I noted though, they seemed to have toned down the "Spray the cars" water effect.

After Maverick, we played the shooting gallery, I got my butt kicked at air hockey, we took another walk on ride on Mean Streak, then we walked the Frontier Trail. They have this special event where they have covered the Frontier Trail in christmas lights. I swear I thought I should be hearing carols and wearing a coat. By the time we got to the front of the park it was about 9:30 and we decided to try to beat the traffic out of the park. By 10 we were at Max and Ermas - open till 11PM, and providing good, friendly, fast, competent service, I know thats a rare thing in Sandusky.

It might not be how you would have spent the day at Cedar Point, but it worked out well for us.

TR: Kings Island - 4/26/09

Trip Report: Kings Island
Mason, OH
April 26, 2009

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This was the second weekend of the season at Kings Island, and Rideman and I were so thrilled about Diamondbackwe wanted to go ride it again. We got started a bit late which meant we arrived to the park around 12:30. This meant, unfortunately that we arrived right along with the after church crowd. We had to wait a while to get throug the toll plaza and we were searching for a parking space when Rideman commented that it seems like there is always a space that opens up in the center of the lot. No sooner had he finished saying it, then a car pulls out and we dart into a nice close up parking space

We enter the park and head directly to Diamondback. We first noticed that the temporary queue has already been pretty much remoed except for a couple section to make sure the line forms alongside Rivertown Junction. We had been in line about 20 minutes or so when the ride broke down. What made the breakdown interesting is we saw a crew member climb the steep lifthill to 'comfort' the riders. He was a ball of energy and was going to race up those stairs at record pace. Yeah, that worke formaybe the first half of the climb, then it was more like the snails pace the rest of the way up. We found it was interesting that this seems to be the only ride that requires the ride operator to wear fall protection to climb the lift, but its not the full OSHA gear, so we conjectured it must be a park rule and not an OSHA requirment. Anyway, we get on the ride after about a 15 minute shut down so all told it might have taken about an hour. We get sent to Row 10 where I note the queue gate is nowhere near lined up with the seating row due to a support column. We were about as middle train as you can get and it still gives a pretty good ride.

After Diamonback we take a walk around the park We skip Beast but we opt to ride Backlot Stunt Coaster. We get to skip a few people by answering when they call for two riders, but it got us in the back row instead of the dull middle car. A fairmly ordinary ride on Backlot Stunt Coaster followed by a fiarly ordinary ride on Vortex. We look at the lines in X-Base but as usual they are just too long.

We follow that up with uneventful rides on the Red Racer and Adventure Express. The big thing about Adventure Express is that all the special effects were shut off. We head into Action Zone where, just like X-Base the lines are pretty long, and we wind up only taking a quick ride on Flight Deck before returning to International Street. We realize the park is going to be fairly crowded today, and decide to go to Eiffel Tower to get some nice photos of Diamonback and the rest of the park.

After spending a bit of time on top of Tower, we head back to Diamondback and take another ride. We enjoy Fruit Chills (I had watermelon and Dave had Strawberry) while waiting in line through the almost full queue area. Rideman timed the time to eat the Chills as about 13 minutes, and thats with using the flimsiest spoons the park could find. This time we request and recieve the back seat. Wow, even better, I really think Diamonback is a back seat ride. We take another lap around the park where we score rides on Shake, Rattle and Roll and Zephyr.

We head into X-Base and I talk Rideman into a ride on Firehawk. Rideman had not ridden Firehawk since it left Geauga Lake a few seasons ago, mainly due to the fact the ride was usually a walk on at Geauga Lake and it usually 1-2 hours wait at Kings Island. We had waited about 40 minutes and were right up to the part of the line where the grouper directs you to go to either the left or right station when the ride breaks down. In fact, the ride is down for about 20 minutes and I am fearful that Rideman will want to bail out of line, and Firehawk is my second favorite coaster in the park. Not to mention, I wanted to ensure Rideman at least got a ride on Firehawk. So all in all about 75 minutes later we are taking a ride on Firehawk. I still really like it, but I don't think Rideman liked it as much as I do.

While waiting for Firehawk, Rideman ecieveda call from another coaster enthusiast who agreed to meet us at the Firehawk exit. He had not gotten to ride Diamonback yet, so thats where we headed. Ron was a bit concerned about his size though I didn't think he would have any issues. We show Ron to the super hi tech electric test seat that gives you a positive red light or green light after you pull the bar down. I notice a slight change in the programming of the test seat. The first week, the light was off untilthe lap bar has been pulled back far enough, now the light is red until the lap bar is pulled back far enough, then it changed to green. We started joking around calling the electric test seat an "Electric Chair"

All in all we take a ride on Diamondback and were able to get right back into line just before the park closed to bring my total count for the day to 4 and the season to 6 Diamondback rides. We stop by the blue ice cream stand to get some courtesy ice water. We figure this should hold us until we get some dinner. The three of us proceed to go to Bob Evans to have a suprigly good meal for an after park close meal.

Next up: Ride Warriors Weekend, and that TR is already posted!

I am now only three KI TR's in arrears - two from Fall of 2008, and Winter SOAR.

TR: Kings Island - Ride Warrors Weekend - May 9-10, 2009

Trip Report: Ride Warriors Weekend at KI
Kings Island
May 9-10, 2009

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On this weekend, the park decided to host a big park sponsored event. The park had been teasing the event since January, but real details were scarce until about two weeks before the event. I was happy to see that they were making use of their online ticket system for the event. For Gold/Plat pass, you merely had to fill out a registration form, no ticket purchase required unless you wanted to pay the extra money for the picnic lunch. So I registered as soon as I could and was set to attend the event.

I arrived at the park around 8am on the first day. I was surprised to see the parking toll collectors already at it, but thats what passes are for. I headed right up to the registration tables by the old season pass gate. Registration was simple, I gave them my name while showing my ACE card. They put a soft drink wristband on my wrist, hand me an event lanyard and a full color event program. I headed into the park using the specially marked metal detectors which allows me to dodge the general public who is also gathering at the gate.

I have no trouble clearing security and the admission gate using just my gold pass. I head up International Stret to the Gold Pass early entrance gate. It seems late arrivals are being held here, and then every 5-10 minutes a park representative is escorting groups back to the ERT area. All told I don't get to the ERT area until nearly 8:30. Morning ERT is scheduled to be Beast, Italian Job and Vortex, with Beast ERT ending at 9:00 so it can open to gold pass holders. Given that knowledge I head to Beast.

My first Beast ride, I just want a seat, so I take seat 5. I am about to board, when uh oh, we are not boarding this train. There goes another 10-15 minutes as they pull a train off and send it to storage. The ride itself was pretty good, love that new smoother helix. As I am walking down the exit ramp, I hear Diamondback will be added to ERT. Not wanting to venture too far, I take aother ride on Beast before heading to Diamondback.

I get to Diamonback just as ERT is being 'moved' there. I enter the queue and get to the station platform just in time to see the season pass running of the bulls end with quizzcal "How did they get here already?" looks. I beleive I scored 4 rides on Diamonback during the ERT period in various seats.

After the general public were admitted the line for Diamondback started snaking through Rivertown and got back as far as across from the train station. Time to ride something else.

I start touring the park and note Crypt is open. The line is just back into the ante chamber, so I have a 2 cycle wait to get on the ride. This time was worth it as this may have been one of the last day the gondola was flipping like a good Top Spin. Still not a great Top Spin, but passable. Upon exiting Crypt I instantly noted how the Crypt exit path makes the ideal Diamondback photo observation area and take several photos.

By the time I finished that, had a comfort stop, and got a free soft drink, it was time for the Beast walk back. Beast walkback was much the same as other Beast walkbacks, except Cedar Fair only takes you back as far as the turn after the first tunnel, whereas Paramount used to take you all the way to the backmost reaches of the Beast. Still, got lots more photos and then continued on my tour.

I proceeded to do the standard lap of the park, grabbing a ride on Italian Job (30-40 mins for a middle of the train seat), and about 10-20 minutes for Vortex. I have seen Vortex use its limited station queue area more this season than I have for years. I do the usual look at X-Base, decline the rides due to the long wait times, and go ahead and continue my tour with a ride on Racer. Racer line was out to the midway with none of the switchbacks open. I ride Blue Racer as I think to myself there is still a good coaster here begging to be let out.

After Racer I grab one of the French Bread Pizzas at Midway Eats and Treats along with a free drink. I must say the french bread pizza is actually rather decent for $5. After my snack, I took a ride on Adventure Express in the back car, it had almost a full queue but that doesn't take tooo long. Adventure Express is running its usual reliable self, except with all the special effects turned off. Still only 2 train operation as well.

From Adventure Express I start to realize the lines are getting longer. I decide to grab a quick ride on Viking Fury and thats when Rideman annopunces is arrival. Operations could be improved a bit at Viking Fury, but soon I join Rideman at the exit to the ride.

We cut through Festhaus and head to Action Zone. Bad call, Delirum line is too long, Son of Beast line is too long, Flight Deck line is too long, we look through the On Location shop. We stop ourselves short of walking to Invertigo, knowing it would just be another crowded spot.

We stat lapp 2 of the park, we decide Adventure Express is probably our best bet, sure the queue is full but its one of the shortest waits in the park, Much like our first ride except we find more enthusiasts to join our happy group. We stop in Festhaus for drinks and they comment how they have a scavenger hunt entry form that both Rideman and I ween't even offered. We head towards Nickleodeon to try to get some items for their hunt papers. We wind up taking a ride on Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle. Its was a fairly ordinary ride, about the only oddity is my score ended up ended up being something goofy like 1769 with is odd since each target is supposed to score 30.

From there we stop at Greaters for ice cream and then Skyline for free drinks. Its time to head to the Kings Island theater for the presentations. We are treated to some old park photos on our way in, and a preview real for the memorial day weekend events. This is followed up by speeches and Q&A's by a park operations person, Don Helbig, and Jeff Gramke. We also had a video presentation by Tom Rebbie. If you were at the Beasts 25th birthday event, Tom told most of the same anecdotes as at that event. We did learn that the reason Beast has tunnels was out of necessity, and the idea of an underground tunnel was apparently unheard of at the time. They talked about the Beast rehab and how they widened the helix radius slightly. The operations person became the subject of a whine session about line jumping, smoking, the unfair treatment/confusion of platinum passholders, and that sort of thing. (Note, they were all very real concerns, just probably not how the speaker wanted to spend his time).

After the presentations in the theatre we had about an hour until the Beast's birthday party, which we spend partially riding Fairly Odd Coaster. We head back to the Beast Birthday party in the picnic grove. Imagine a wedding reception: You arrive, there are bowls of chips and pretzels, there is a DJ spinning records (in this case a lot of 1979 era music), there are people serving cake. On the way in we filled out a raffle ticket, and were given a free refillable souvenier cup which we can begin using at the picnic groves sfot drink stands, which were opened as a self service operation. They had Little Bill out first, and Scooby later. They did a Locomotion like dance "EVerybody get behind Little Bill and ride the Little Bill Coaster" to which some smart alecks chanted "We're to tall to ride the Little Bill Coaster" Every 15 minutes or so they gave away some door prizes, I didn't win but Rideman won one of the promotional displays, one that shows how Rivertown looked before the renovations. They cleverlyt had a table at one end showing Diamondback merchandise that you too can buy during ERT in the Diamonback gift shop. They also ordered way too much cake, "Everybody come back for as much cake as you want, go ahead get a sugar high!"

The party lasts about an hour and half then we go back into the park,. We decide to start our ERT eraly by taking 2 or 3 Diamondback rides with the public to close out the park day. Then instead of heading toward the front of the park, we headed to Beast. We didn't ride Beast but that was where they wanted us to all wait for the park to clear. Once the park cleared, ERT was on. At this point the single rider line was closed, and the seat assigner was sent away, now its go ahead cram the station, get in any seat queue you want. Rideman described it as a NAPHA like ERT, after the first hour, only about half the people were still riding, once midnight hit, it was only the die hards. By midnight, unless you wanted a front or back seat ride, it was a total walk on., So for the ERT time, the first couple laps we paused between rides to chat in the gift shop, besides on ride photos were FREE during the night ERT as long as you elected electronic delivery via email. After about 2 or 3 rides, Rideman and I got sperated, he is more social during ERT than I am, particularly with a new ride. I don't know ow his night ended, but by lap 4 I was perfecting the dash down the exit ramp, swerve around the displays in the gift shop, out the gift shop, door, down the midway, and back through the empty queue maze and riht back onto the next available train, and taking most of my rides in rows 2-4 or 12-15. All told at the end of Day 1 of the event, I had racked up something like 17 Diamondback rides.

We headed back to Cincinnati, and we added a Steak N Shake stop on the ride home, so after factoing in not getting out of the parking lot till 1:30 or so due to socialzing, we didn't get to Coasterville until like 2:30 or 3AM. We also wanted to do the morning ERT, thats starts out at 8AM, why do I think we aren't going to make it?

Morning ERT was especially appealing becuase it was shceduled for X-Base, where the lines are usually so long we can't get any riding done. Doesn't matter, we still didn't get to the park until 8:30, then we had to check in all over again, get new wristbands and everything. We entered the park and this time Don Helbig escorted us as far as Eiffel Tower, and asked if we knew our way, then we headed the rest of the way ourselves.

We bypassed Racer, why waste X-Base ERT on Racer? We headed to X-Base to learn Firehawk was down, as it would be all day. We rode Flight of Fear which was about a 15 minute wait owing to want to ride in te front seat. I get stapled into the ride to the point where I didn't really enjoy the ride, but it was worth riding becuase it wqas running with all the serivce lights on in the main ride buidling offering a rather unique ride experience for this. We exit and I announce I'd rather not ride it again, and I decide to take advantage of the fact they decided to open Vortex in replacemet of Firehawk. On a side note, Rideman tells me that on a later Flight of Fear ride during ERT he sat in the seat I had trouble with and reported back it has a shorter seatbelt than most other seats.

Meanwhile, I take back seat ride on Vortex, enjoy the floater air, and am dismayed they are making everybody walk around with an almot empty station. I get back in line and decide if its a one and done, I'm going to Row 1. I wait a train to get to ride in row 1, and another single rider joins me. I take a great front seat Vortex ride, we get back to the station and there is nobody waiting at the station gates. I ask about a reride, and the crew allows us to stay on for a second lap. At this time its about 9:25, and Don Helbig mentioned the rope by Juke Box Cafe would be temproarily dropped at 9:30 to allow people to leave the ERT area to ride Beast or Diamonback with the gold pass people. I head to DIamondback and this time the running of the bulls got to the ride faster, I might as well have ridden Beast. I think it took 20 minutes to get one ride, by which time Rideman joined me. He did ride Beast first, and so we take another DIamondback ride together. I am happy to report they had the soft drink stand in front of Diamondback open for the morning ERT. They weren't set up to sell food, but they were setup to pull free drinks, next year I hope they have that open for the night ERT.

Once the public enters the park, we let them have DIamondback, its time to actually ride the rides, since for the most part the park was too crowded yesterday.

We start with Reptar. We both had misgivings about riding Reptar due to our sizes, I evne joked "Double Rider Rejection" coming up. Remarkably we both fit into Reptar, it may have been a snug fit but we did fit. We nostalgically reembered when you used to have to walk the lift on the rides first weekend. All in all not a bad little ride. We next head to Avatar, where we manage to score an end seat ride. It had been so long since we had one of those it was refreshing. We continued with a ride on Fairly Odd Coaster before heading to Action Zone.

Once in Action Zone, we spotted a 15 minute wait for Invertigo. We took the rare opportunity and owing to a bottleneck in the station even got an end seat out of the deal. Invertigo is another neat ride that suffers from low capacity. We continue around to Flight Deck, which unlike yesterday is now a walk on.

We note its not even noon yet and we have alost hit all the E ticket rides. We skip Son of Beast for now, and even though Skycoasteris only $5 Rideman vividly remembers the hour+ wait we had two years ago "Don't even think about it".

We cut through Festhaus where we stop and talk to some fellow park nuts. People are starting to tire out, what with the late night and early morning. Our talk gets interrupted when they play a teaser song from the country music show at full volume, with the threat the show starts in 15 minutes. We were still around when the show started in 15 minutes, and it was too funny seeing people scrambling for the exits.

We then take time out fo our days to call our Mothers, I mean it is Mother's Day afterall. After that, we decide to grab lunch. Usually food means either a catered food event or leaving the park. The free drinks wristband makes the euqation more interesting. While food prices int he park are only slightly marked up, its the drinks that are usually the deal breaker. We go to International Street Skyline and figure out that even though the chili itself is marked up, since we aren't paying for drinks, it would wind up costing us the same as if we left the park to go to Skyline, and we don't have to tip here. So, yes you are reading this right, we ate lunch inside the park!

After having lunch, I bought some insurance in the form of a gift from the Glass Blower shop for my mom (she loves blown glass) . We decided to run our gift shop runs out to the car, and reentered the park.

We heade dback to Diamondback and took another spin. We met up with another enthusiast but our visit was short lived as he had to make use of his picnic grove ticket. Dave and I took another lap around the park, this time passing up more stuff than usual. I fact I think it was more a walk around the park, we take a lot of time analyzing the back half of Coney since we both think that area is currently underutilized. We get some free drinks at times, we note FIrehawk is still closed, we do take a ride on Vortex just for the sake of riding something. We also make stops at Racer (blue side), where Rideman gets his usual torque lock ride which means he has sowrn off both Racer and Beast for the remainder of the season.

We do take another ride on Adventure Express, and get into the Delirium queue. The queue is about half full but we decide to wait it out. Not even one full cycle later the ride goes down mechanical. We decide to wait it out. It takes about15-20 minutes by which time most of the queue has abandoned ship so we are in the second group when it reopens. As Rideman noted, all in all we probably spent the same amount of time as if the ride had operted normally. Delirium is a ride worth riding at all costs, anyway, as its one of the parks best rides. I also not that even thought Crypt and Delirum appear to use the same seats, these seats are more accomodating than Crypts.

We next head to Son of Beast to round out the e-ticket rides we can get, I think from here out we both neat Italian Job to finish the set of operating coasters, and I need a Beast ride. We ride Son of Beast in a "take a seat, any seat" mode as the line was close to 30 minutes long. We got rewarded with the usual horridly rough ride.

At this point we take a run through the Emporium shop (ever notice how many parks call their main shop the Emporium?), and head to Italian Job. The good news is the Italian Job line has shrunk since last we looked at it, and we got assigned to row 1. The only negative is they insisted on mega stapling me. I just don't get it.

After Italian Job, Dave heads right to Diamondback, and I score a walk on ride on Beast. At least I finished the set today. At this point I high tail it to Diamondback. I have a gamble to make here. One of the event perks is one ride on Diamondback after the park closes tonight, call it a mini ERT. I look at the line, it looks like they have enough riders to go to close, but the neet up point is again, way back at Beast. I figure I can take a ride here with the GP, or I can retrace my steps back to Beast and join that group. Either way I get 1 ride. But if I ride with the GP, maybe I can start heading back towards Beast afterwards and fall in with the group, and thus get two rides. I deicde to take the GP ride. I wait out the line and am dismayed becuase by the time I go down the stairs to go u nder the track, they have admitted the Ride Warriors group to the closed off queue. Looks like I lost the gamble, but I still get paid even money 1 wait: 1 ride. I'll take gambles like that all day. By the time I get to the top of the station stairs the end of the queue is startingto go dow under the track. I take a ride in my assigned seat. I exit the ride, the park is clearly already closed, the ERT line is laready completely inside the station. I remember, "It never hurts to ask, all they can say is no" and remember that parks often make excpetions or turn a kind eye during events. I fly through the gift shop and head to the closed ride entrance. There are some ride operators and some green shirted GR staff huddled around the ride entrance.

I pull the lanyard out from under my t-shirt and start to ask "Am I too late?" I don't need to, the entrance gate is opened for me and I fall in right behind somebody toting a tripod up to the station. I get up to the station, and note there are still sizeablelines for the front and back seats. Unlike standard practice they are letting people wait out for preferred seats. I head to Row 14, the backmost empty seat queue. My gamble then really pays off I wind up getting 4:1 odds, as I get three more rides as they allow me (and anybody else in non desired seats) to stay on until they clear out the front and back seat lines. Woo-Hoo!!!!

We deicde to forgo the usual after park meal tonight, but I do wind up getting the Kings Island under glass snowglobe from the DB Trading Post. And with that we leave the park after a mostly succesful event.

And with that, I am happy as I am now just 5 KI trips in arrears writing TR's.

TR: Kings Island - May 17, 2009

Trip Report: Kings Island
May 17, 2009

Welcome to yet another trip I made to Kings Island, when I finish this report I will only be 6 more Kings Island TR's in arrears. Ohh Boy.

Today we welcome a special guest star to Coasterville's Coasting Adventures, JerryD. Jerry is a professed morning person (I still don't understand the whole morning person thing), and so we are at the park by 9:10, where we easily clear parking tolls with Jerry's parking pass, score a prime spot in Gold Pass parking (and witness the car ahead of us shamlessly barrel into Gold Pass parking without even slowing down, depsite the shouts of the parking attendant), easily clear security, Jerry clears Guest Relations with his Platinum Pass, and we are in the park by 9:15.

Today, Gold Pass ERT is set to start at 9:30, and I note instead of a mob waiting by the Gold Pass gate, they have one orderly single file line that by this time reached all the way from near the three flagpoles to the lobby of the International Restaurant. Various park management types were chatting it up with the guests while we waited for the gate to open. It was a quick flash your pass to the guard as you walked by and then we headed to International Street. Dutifully following the signs to Diamondback, we arrive at the ride just as it is opening.

We get expressed through an empty queue house and find ourselves assigned to an okay spot towards the middle of the train in the third train out for the day. We start the day with another airtime filled Diamondback ride. We get back to the brakes and we note the train ahead of us has not left the station yet, and is not being loaded, we note the train behind us come to a stop on the final brakes. Uh, oh this isn't good. Ride operators come out to our train to inform us of the situation, that's never good. A good 5-10 minutes later they are able to advance our train into the station where they let us exit, but again do not load the train. We exit the ride and since the ride is clearly down we take the time for a pitstop, and Jerry can find a way to store his rental car keys in such way that will not cause him discomfort on Diamondback. I mean really, they put both keys and both remotes, as well as a tag on one large keyring that can't be opened. What are the rental car companies thinking?

We rejoin the line for the closed Diamondback, after all its 9:50, the only other ride open at this time is the Beast. We figure there is nothing to be lost by waiting here, and although people are constantly streaming out of the entrance gate, they have not yet cleared the station. At about 10:05 we are practically at the ride entrance gate but seeing no dicernable progress we decide to try to find an open ride.

We head back Rivertown, and I point out the new Haystack Drier to Jerry, but we skip that, the train, the log flume, and the rapids ride and make our way to Crypt. I am half amazed to find Crypt open. The word on the forums is that Cryt has been changed again, and for the worse. Get ready for a train wreck. (Choo-Choo) We enter the Crypt building and are allowed to proceed directly to what was the preshow room, now Death Bat's room. I note a gate at the end of the ante chamber before the preshow room, and the operator is opening and closing the gate between groups instead of just keeping it open until preshow fills, or its time to ride. At least we get choice of rows, thats some small consolation. I look ahead and clearly notice the overhead door seperating the preshow room from the ride chamber no longer closes, replaced by safety gates between preshow and the ride chamber. At the appropriate time, the gates are opened and we board the gondola. People move pretty much, but not all the way to the right, and take seats. We hear the request to "Please move 3 seats to the right" Everybody shifts three seats right. There is another request "Please move 6 seats to the right", there are no more empty seats to move to. They ask again in a "Are you deaf or stupid?" tone. Finally after they decide verbal intructions aren't working, the operator comes to our row and says "Please move to the right", again there are no seats to move to. Then he finally says "Everybody move 6 seats towards me" He is standing to the LEFT of us. Therin lies the problem. His right is our left.

Anyway, the ride finally starts, and now you can forget the music, you can forget the fancy lights, you can forget any powerful flipping. The ride operates pretty much in large Ferris Wheel mode, you do go upside down twice per ride, and thats becuase the lock the gondola as it goes around. You know its a bad ride when the kids are complaining about it. As we exited the ride, the people on my cycle made it clear to the operators that they did not particularly enjoy their ride.

Okay, until we have some improvements, that is it for that ride. Sorry Don Helbig, but your tweet advertising a new soundtrack isn't going to cut it. We head next for Beast. Beast is a walkon and we walk right to the back car. Jerry scolds me for taking the back seat when I get to ride Beast a lot more than he does. Since both of us are of nice size, we decided to split up for both our comforts, I change seats with him and am glad to move to a non wheel seat. I really do like the retracking they did in the Helix, the ride has been running better than it has in years, but that doesn't stop it from being a pretty overrated ride.

We continue our tour of the park, this time stopping at Italian Job. They really should open the shortcut gate when the line is short, as this morning everybody was doing the Queue Rail Vault or Duck to avoid the long excessive trip down to, through, and back up from the disused queuehouse. We get our seat assignment, and we are lucky enough to draw row 1. Yeah, we get a little airtime, and they don't insist on stapling me like they did last week. The ride is a fun ride but not too thrilling. Jerry had not ridden since Italian Job media day, so he got to really notice how badly the special effects have broken down.

We continue the coaster tour with a near walk on Vortex ride in the front row of the back car. Nothing special here folks, move along. We start to head into X-Base and note a huge group all headed down the path to X-Base right before we arrived, so we passed this for now. We also passed Racer, and Adventure Express to head into Action Zone.

We do stop at Delirium, which has about a 1/3 full queue house. We wait a few cycles, we get loaded onto the ride, we get unloaded from the ride and sent back to the bull pen. Uh oh, its a problem that is best solved with a garden hose. "Clean up on Aisle Delirium!" "Another Satisifed Customer!" I expect them to run the ride empty to spin dry it, but no except for the people with seats near the affected area, the ride is immediately reloaded and we go for a ride. This is my favorite flat ride in the park, one of Paramount's better moves.

We exit Delirium, bypass the go-karts and head to Son of Beast. Uh Oh, Son of Beast is closed. What a shame! Neither of us look too sad at that revelation. We decide to pass up Flight Deck. (Jerry has been to the park multiple times, and has thus earned the right to skip rides) We note the Extreme Skyflyer is only $5 today. $5 each and about 20-30 minutes later and we are being harnessed. I note they have added a knotted rope loop to the footbar but I'm not sure what thats about. We have both flown this several times, which causes the ride operators to show concern if we enjoyed ourselves when we aren't screaming or freaking out during the ride. We follow the usual procedure, decide Jerry can pull this time. I note during the final checks before they lower the lift they call out what sounds like "Two Flags, Two Beaners, Two Flyers Ready to Go" I can't figure out what Flags reffers to in this context. We go up, we don't hesitate to pull when instructed, and Jerry leans way to one side which causes us to get the Spinning Skycoaster Experience. I am amazed how even the first drop just doen't do much for me anymore. I remember my first ride I thought the first drop was going in slow motion as my life was passing in front of my face. All in all a fun experience.

We exit Extreme Skyflyer and decide to bypass Drop Tower (I mean after we just did the brakeless freefall ride!), Congo Falls and decided the line for Invertigo looked a bit long. We headed back to X-Base. Flight of Fear and Firehawk were each posting about an hour wait. We decide to wait for Firehawk. One slow moving line later we are being shown to the other station where you have to go down stairs, cross under the track, then back up. Firehawk itself is the park's second best coaster behind Diamondback, shame the wait for it is alsways so long. Yes I ride in the arms extended Superman pose.

At this time we decide its already like 3pm, the park closes at 8pm. We head back to Diamonback and proceed to spend the next 5 hours gettng to know Diamondback. All in all we score like 17 more rides on Diamondback. We use the single ride line at times when it looks shorter, and we get awarded with some back of the train rides, some close to the front rides, a lot of mid train rides. We keep trying and keep gettng rejected trying to request the front seat. Finally about 11 rides into the session we finally get that coveted front seat, lean over the clamshell intense ride. That's a real neat ride, and I'm torn beteween that experience and the airtime filled back car, I think I have to give the edge to the back car.

Halfway through our ride session, Jerry mentions he has never ridden Avatar. We go to ride Avatar and get awarded with sucky middle of the bench middle of the car seats. Enough of that, its back to Diamondback.

Don Flint finally decided to show up around 6:30, and the lot of us manage to get 4 or 5 more Diamondback rides after he arrives. I know I love DIamondback, and considering its the conly coaster Jerry really seemed interested in, I take it he really liked it as well.

After the park closed down for the night, we all met up at Culvers (Jerry, Don, Don's mom, and myself) for a post park visit celebration.

Yeah, now only 6 more KI TRs to go!!!

TR: Holiwood Nights (5/29-31, 2009) - Holiday World + stops at SFKK and KI

Trip Report: HoliWood Nights Weekend
Featuring stops at:
Holiday World (5/29-5/30)
Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom (5/31)
Kings Island (5/31)

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"A coaster event so great it included divine intervention"
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Okay, welcome to the official start of the 2009 Summer season, preview weekends are over and itstime to start the main season with the Coaster Enthusiasts Family Reunion aka HoliWood Nights at Holiday World.

I started my day May 29th with the pre-event ritual, a buffet luncheon at the local Indian restaurant. Trust me, there is nothing like Chicken Curry, rice, and Nan to coat the stomach and prepare it for the three days ahead I would advise, however, not waiting until the day of the event to start getting your system used to Indian cuisine, lest you suffer the consequences.

When Rideman picked me up, he noted my American flag was wrapped around its pole, despite the fact I have a special pole that is designed to prevent that from happening. He comment s "I thought that wasn't supposed to happen with that pole" In truth it doesn't very often, but o solution is perfect. I then left Coasterville around 4pm which meant we got to deal with downtown Cincinnati during rush hour, which wasn't bad this year, we even sailed through Louisville and were thankful we weren't heading east. We were all smiles and making time until we got mid way through Indiana when the highway was cut down to one lane each way moving 40mph instead of the usual 70mph. That was painfully slow. Eventually we made our way to Exit 63, and I am surprised there isn't a traffic light at the exit, what with the number of people heading to Holiday World from points east, and having tomake a left turn off the exit. We then start heading down the 7 mile drive from the exit to the park chucking that this is the point where first time park visitors are pulling out their maps scratchng their heads.

It used to be the first sighting of the park was when you drove around the back of HoliDogs FunTown, then the Voyage became the beacon indicating you were nearing the park, now its Pilgrims Plunge you see first. We had heard Santa Claus got its first ever trafic light this year (they ARE red and green afterall), we had conjectured it would be at the intersection where you make the turn to go to either the Raven or Legend lot, but instead it is located at the turn near Fun Town. I guess it does help at the end of the night since anybody exiting towards Exit 63 has to make that left. Interestingly, we note evidence of a new road going straight at what was formerly a three way intersection, the new road might only be 50 feet long at this point, but it has arrows on the right side pointing in. We combined that with the recent news the park was negotiating more real estate to expand the Legend lot, along with evidence the Legend lot is undergoing a lot of work, that we conjectured there may be a time when the Raven lot will cease to exist as we know it, which will allow the park to expand to fill in the Raven lot, and all parking will be at the Legend lot and you will enter the park via the tunnel under the road, Kennywood style.

We pull into the Raven lot and try to vulture (or is that Raven) a space as close to the front gate as possible, always a fun challenge due to the layout of the front of the parking lot consisting of dead head rows where you pull in, find out the space you were going to grab is filled with a compact car or light stanchion and then have to back out of the row. We score a parking space near the front of the lot and do our best salmon imitation as we are trying to get to the park gate as swarms of people are trying to get out to their cars. We make our way to the front gate plaza and we find a nice crowd waiting at the check in windows and another crowd gathered outside the gates. Yep the reunion has started, as soon as people got checked in they were joining the crowd of people milling around outside the park waiting for the first night ERT.

Check in was an efficient process with two lanes for pre-registered people and one lane for ticket sales. I got to the window, showed my ID and ACE card, the checked my name, then handed me a t-shirt and my FUNvelope containing the usual contents: nametag, ticket strip with admission and meal tickets, and a coupon sheet. The check in hostess was taking the time to explain the ticket sheet, then handed me an itinerary after pointing out the key important parts. They even took the time to circle in highlighter the fact I needed to be there by 8:15AM or no Morning ERT for me. I pretty much decided right then and there that I would be bagging on the morning ERT. I also recieved a flyer for the CoasterBuzz event in the fall, I will take that event under consideration.

We then followed more Holiday World event ritual by quickly returning to our car to drop off everything except the nametags and the Friday night tickets. It may seem silly but we saw a space in the first non handicap row of the parking lot and so we moved the car up to what is literally the nearest non-handicap space in the lot. We return to the front gate plaza to join the reunion. The big topic of conversation was the closed rides board which indicated both Legend and Pilgrim Plunge were down for the day. We didn't linger long so we could take care of some post multi hour travel needs. By this time it was 6:40 and we weren't sure if they would let us enter the park now or if we would have to wait outside until ERT begins. We entered the park and the reunion moved to by the Appluase fountain. We chatted there until we heard Will and Pat Koch on the PA system announcing the park had been closed for 30 minutes, telling us about return visit offers, its a very friendly touch on the usual "Park's closed, get out now" recording. We noticed there were a fair number of general pubic also lingering about the area, and figured we would help the park be able to give the all clear for ERT if we moved on to the picnic grove.

We were walking towards the Picnic Grove when we met up with Pat Koch near the Alamo, and proceeded to walk part of the way to the Pincic Grove with her. I think we got distracted when we noted what might be the only test seat for a rapids ride. We entered the picnic grove just in time to hear the stories about Legend blowing a gearbox and a dedicated Holiday World staffer making a mad drive from the park to Cincinnati, OH to have the gearbox serviced, then making te dad drive back to the park, then getting the gearbox installed, and tested. Yes, they had it running in time for the evening ERT!!! The second story was about Pilgrims Plunge was down since Wednesday, it blew a shaft encoder, a specialty part that needs to come from the Intamin factory in Germany. Its status at the time was somewhere between Philadelpiha and a town just north of the park They apologized that Plunge would not be available for Friday ERT, but Will is refreshing the UPS tracking page every 30 seconds, and has the UPS agent in the local depot instructe to page him as soon asthe package arrives. Word has it that Will got the call at 5:30AM, and went out picked it up, and the park had the ride operational for Saturday morning ERT! We then went through a detailed explanation of the event schedule, during whch Dave Althoff got a shout out, a dishonrable mention for having to pay the Procrastination Tax, actually.

There wasa moment of silence for some fellow enthusiasts who had recently passed away, then we started Friday ERT.

We decided to head up to dinner first, noting the Legend was open, but instead taking a spin on the Raven as our first ride, hey it beats walkinng up the hill. Our first ride was in the front row of the back car and it was already performing nicely. We headed to Kringles Kafe where we each polished off 4 slices of Sausage pizza with its famous thick soft doughy crust, a pile of potato chips and a block of fudge. We met up with more friends at dinner, and after dinner just outside Kringles. Man I'm gonna miss somebody if I try to remember them all, but hello again to Klockster, the Drabeks, David Cornell, the guys from Texas, Kory and Chad, the dude who likes old rides who is building an aircraft we met in the bumper cars line, the Nungesters, and much,much more.

After dinner, it was time to ride,we continued Coaster Foreplay with another quality ride on Raven, this time in that wonderful back seat before heading onto Legend. Legend was a near walk on, we rode towards the front, and sure Legend was squealing and was only running one train, but lets remember it was down all day so let's just be grateful it was open. One ride on Legend, and we can say that the Legend is back! Legend had a spell when it wasn't really running as good as it did when it first opened, but these last couple years they have done a lot to get it back to the way when it opened.

After Legend, we made a stop at Hollowswings which the park had graciously substituted for Pilgrims Plunge. When we arrived the ride was running empty to drum up business, when we boarded there were maybe half a dozen peope on the ride, when our ride ended at least one lane of the queue maze was full. The ride itself was fun with the spooky music and is a lot smoother ride than the Zierrer. Hallowsings is a custom themed Zamperla Flying Trapeeze.

After Hallowsings, it was time to stop stalling and get ourselved down to Voyage. Voyage was a walk on in anywhwere except the front and back seats. We started wonering where everybody was, as it seemed like all the rides were walk ons, yet we saw a good size group in the picni grove. Our first Voyage ride was a middle car ride just to get on the ride, and we were impressed with that. Then we took a front car ride in row 2, and that was even better, then another ridein maybe car 3. Around the time we had started hearing people saw the back seat is too intense. We took that as a challenge, and headed to the back seat. Wow! Extreme airtime on every drop, a devine triple down, and the ride seemed to be running all out in extreme mode. Little did we now what we would be thinking in 24 hours, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

We continued to ride Voyage until about 10:15 (for a 10:30 park close), then headed to Raven so we would not have to walk up the hill by Raven. Thats not to say we didn't avoid the hill between Thanksgiving and Haloween, and we realized once again that Holiday World is a very hilly park. We finished night one with 2 or 3 back to back rides on Raven until they shut the rides down for night one. We headed out of the park, thanking Pat, Will, and Paula on our way out

We headed to our car, and then headed to our hotel in Tell City. It seems just about every hotel near the park charges at least $100 a night, but we found a Days Inn in Tell City for only like $61 a night. Obviously a lot of other Holiwood Nights attendees also found the Days Inn as walking the hotel halls we didn't spot one otherguest that didn't have a coaster shirt of some type on. After dealing with the uneven parking lot, and finding our room despite the misleading directions we were given by the desk clerk we soon found our room and settled in After getting the air conditioner cranked up, and electronics chargers charging we went out to source a late night snack. We first stopped at the Super WalMart Tell City, clearly the city's big hang out spot. Snack supplies sourced, we next found the only open food in Tell City, a Taco Bell drive through. I can't say it better than Rideman did when he said "You know somethings wrong when late night Taco Bell helps cure the digestive issues casued by the pizza" Dave, I'm telling you, coating your stomach with chicken curry does wonders!

We had alread made the decision to skip the waterpark ERT, well we also decided to sleep in knowing we had a late night ahead of us. I think we fnally got to the park around 1pm after a wild goose chase to Dale, but we did learn the Denny's has been moved, as has the freeway exit. By this time the Raven lot was marked as full, so we headed to the Legend lot and found a space within a reasonable distance of the tunnel. Evidence of a lot of work going on in the Legend lot os obvious as much of the back half is coned off, and it looks like they are building a tram circle in the front of the lot. A disused parking trams sits in the Legend lot. We go through the tunne and we can see the front gate straight ahead of just accross the Raven parking lot, unfortunately the park has built a chain link fence to ensure you can't cut through the lot, you have to walk all the way to the front of the Raven lot and walk around the perimieter of the Raven lot to the park gates. I know the park caters to a lot of children, but this just seems to be overkill, like they don't trust you with the basic skill of safely walking through a parking lot. I notice the park is also building a new tram circle in front of the park gates, which I think will probably be used for the Legend lot tram, as they already have a Raven lot tram circle and tram path along one side of the Raven lot.

We noticed no rides marked as closed, so we entered the park just in time for an anoyance rain to start coming down. We were hungry not having had breakfast or lunch yet, so we headed directly to the Plymouth Rock Cafe. We walked right up to the serving line where I opted for roast turkey, dressing, corn on the cob, sweet potato casserole, dinner roll, butter, pumpkin pie and a sweet tea, all for just around $12. It would be hard to find that kind of meal at that price at a casual dining restaurant outside of the park. Plymouth Rock Cafe still serves up good food, at a great value, but it still suffers from a bad bottleneck at the check out stands that it has had ever since it opened. I make my way out to a table, and I was pleasantly surprised to see apple butter on the condiment bar. We proceeded to sit down to lunch with Kory and his family. It was a great relaxing meal.

After lunch Rideman wanted to fetch something from his car, so I took a back seat on Voyage while I was waiting for him. Voyage, while running above average was not quite up to last night. I do, however, appreciate the free lockers for cameras and the like. After my ride I met up with Rideman who surprised me as I was expecting him to come down the hill from Halloween, and he instead entered through Splashin Safari.

We next headed to Pilgrims Plunge, the queue house was maybe half full and sports the largest cieling fan known to man. At the end of the main queue house is an ride attendant who has the job of controlling access to the ride. You see the people entering the ride from the queue area, and the people exiting the ride from the ride both enter this area where there are loose article shelves and courtesy lockers for your use. You get time to stow your stuff, remembering you can take your shirts, shoes and socks off for this ride. After you access the lockers this host has the job of making sure those enterting the ride head to the stairs to cross over the trough, and those exiting the ride head to the exit door. Once across the bridge over the trough you enter a holding area, it loook like five seat lanes except there are no gates in front, instead there is only one gate and people flow through the gate from the seat lanes in order front to back. They use a "the boats never stop system" which is all well and good, but I freak out and my sense of self preservation refuses to let me make the jump into the boat. After two attempts and about to give up, I ask the ride host if the boat can stop, and find out that yes it can.

The ride itself, first yoou go along a long meandering trough with a rapids section or two. You might get a slash or two here in the front of the boat, like we were. Eventually you come around to the base of the elevators. Here the boat waits for an elevator to arrive, then the boat raises almost stright up except for the fact the two elevator tracks bow outward to allow to elevator platforms to pass in the center while only have one 'station' at the top and bottom. Going up the elevator is just a wierd feeling, maybe even a bit unsettling. At the top the elevator lines itself, and you sit there for a moment or two before the boat moves off the elevator and onto the boat chute. The boat chute itself isn't that bad, the water spray is such that its hard to look at whats going on. As has been reported the boats don't make quite the splash you would expect, and at first I was thinking "That wasn't bad at all" and then WHOOSH a wave comes crashing into the boat. Row A you get damp but nowhere near drenched, at least that was my experience. You then go through the run out and a U-turn back to the station. This area has been outfitted with coin operated water geysers. The boats themselves have 5 rows of two seats with high seat backs and lap bars that drop down from overhead like on Intamin's newest coasters, exept these do not have seat belts. I am a rider with a nice size gut, and although Intamin rides generally cause me issues with rider fit, I found this ride to be very accomodating, and I did not experiene the lap bar staple, or the sudden lurch into the lap bar at the bottom of the drop I had read about.

We checked our watches and it was already 3pm, so its time to head to the Raven/Legend photo walk back. I like the way the park is doing it this year, instead of a sharp "You must be here at 3pm" rule, you could arrive anywhere between 3 and 3:15, which I'm sure in turn helped spread people out along the walkback trail so we weren't all bunched up together. The walkback started at the main gate to Splashin Safari so we decided to go through Thanksgiving as that seemed the shortest route. We were eager to take this walkback as it had not been offered in a few years.
We got to Splashin Safari and after a quick nametag check were admitted through the gate next to the Splashin Safari entrance, this admitted us to a path that goes between Frightful Falls and Splashin Safari. We paused to get a few photos of those two things, and then were guided to take the first path to the left instead of continuing back to go to part of Legend that goes alongside Slashin Safari. The first path to the left, takes you to see the frist drop, lift hill, and the part of Legend that crosses Frightful Falls. Once could also see the water treatment building for Frightful Falls. Some time was taken at each key point to snap action photos of the rides. After this we came to a part where one could take unadvertised backstage photos of the high dive show. You then continued along a path where you had the lower ravine section of Raven to your left, and the helix section of Legend to your right.

The tour itself, was pretty much a self guided tour, although the guys from Gravity Group and a Holiday World coaster mechanic were all there eager to talk about their favorite subject with coaster enthusiasts and answer questions. As you might expect give the chance some people would take all day taking photos and talking with the ride designers and mechanics, so there was a pace person who started the tour a few minutes after the entrance gate was closed whose job it was to keep the group on pace. As you might guess, this was where the pace person met up to us. We continued up a steed hill that wrapped around the Legend helix past the wood coaster maintenance shed where this year you can see wood, but in the past they had Banshee ride parts and the old Legend train. At this point you walk across the dam that blocks Lake Rudoplh from pouring into the park. The campground can be seen accross the lake, you can look down the hill on one side and see the ravine portion of Raven, or look on the other side and see the Lake Rudolph turn on Raven. We continues towards the LAke Rudolph turn, to finish up by walking alongside the first drop tunnel to return to the park via Rudoplhs Reindeer Ranch childrens ride area.

We looked at the new for last year Reindeer Games ride and then noted we didn't have much time before the Voyage photo walkback. We headed back down to Voayge, talk about back tracking today. We got to Voyage a bit early so we took the chance to get some Pilgrims Plunge photos. At this point we came across the major annoyance the park has just installed.

Let me put it to you like an old text adventure game:

"You have come to the end of the Thnksgiving Section, you look stragiht ahead and see a dead end where there is a Pilgrims Plunge observation area complete with coin operated water geysers, to your left you see a clossed gate clearly makred "Employees Only", upon further inspection you see another of the parks walkways on the other side of the gate, and you see said pathway being used by park guests much like yourselfs. These guests don't even have the coaster shirts or nametags on. To your right you see a walkway that leads to Pilgrims Plunge. Your destination is the Voyage service gate to your left, just past the closed gate that is currently being monitored by a park hostess. "

To solve this puzzle, you have to walk up the path to Pilgrims Plunge, following the signs to enter the ride, just before getting to the ride, you can walk through a gap in the fence to another Pilgrims Plunge observation area, with more coin op gesyers. There is a fence all along this path seperating you from the path you were just on. As you continue along, you go down a long windy ramp, so you can tunnel under Pilgrims Plunge, then up another ramp to come out just on the other side of the closed gate. Talk about irritating, and it is clearly irritating their normal park guests, I say this becuase when there isn't a park staff person present, folks were leaping over the closed gate. We're talking basic human behavior here, folks don't have much tolerance for long out of their way detours, and will, given the chance, try to circumvent them. I've seen it happen at several different parks. Classic example was when Kentucky Kingdom wanted to prevent people from taking a shortcut, they errected a series of obstcles - such as a park bench, then a fence, then a flower bed, then a hedge, then another fence, then a railing. That didn't stop folks from stepping up on the bench, leaping the fence, walking through the flower bed, trampling through the hedge, climbing the other fence, then ducking over the railing. Kentucky Kingdom, to their credit, finally decided to remove all that stuff and just create a path there rather than fight it. It just doesn't make sense to me, the park spent a LOT of money errecting that tunnel under the Plunge. I know they did it so they can have an attire checkpoint when leaving Splashin Safari, but if they have to put a monitor at the gate that person may as well be checking attire. They seemed to really overcomplicate this, when the easiest chepest answer would have been to have the attire check right after the Plymouth Rock Cafe, since Splashin Safari standards of dress are acceptable on Plunge. When Splashin Safari closes, then you close that gate.

Where was I, or yeah talking that long out of the way detour, the Voyage tour was much luch the onces in the past, except that now the service gate has been moved to almost the first drop. Its an out and back coaster, and this is an out and back tour along the same path. They did have the pathway on one side of the ride open all the way up to and just starting into the insane turnaround. Again more photos were taken, again the coaster mechanic and gravity group guys were on hand to answer questions or just talk coasters. After suitable time was allowed the group was paced back down the hill (Its a steep hillside Voyage is built on), and then back out the same service gate, where we took the same long detour back to Thanksgiving.

It was at this time that we decided we really should be riding some rides. We started with Gobbler Getaway where we met up with David Cornell. So in our car we had Dave Cornell, Dave Althoff, and Dave Bowers. Gee, I bet Dave is going to win! The queue maze was half full, I think the pumpkin pie spice smell is back, and with three in the car that really spreads the available points thin. Still, gotta love a classic style dark ride complete with crash doors and turkeys that taunt you at the end of the ride. Don't worry that our hapless farmer in the dark ride didn't have the heart to kill the turkey, ad they armed you with turkey callers instead of shotguns, becuase you can still have turkey at the Plymouth Rock Cafe just across the midway.

We skipped Turkey Twirl and Voyage for now (hey, we have massive coaster ERT tonight!) and headed u p into the main park. Since we were in a water ride mood, we decided to ride the Raging Rapids in Boulder Canyon which we usually skip. This ride was nearly a walk on and we got off mostly dry, and had more amusement watching our fellow riders avoid the water. I'm thankful the water curtain in the old town shut off just in time, and that the folks running the coin of geysers were also more interested in getting the other riders wet. This ride seems shorter than I remember it being in the past.

After the Rapids Ride, we stopped off at the Funnel Cake Factory for a snack of Fried Oreos, yumm yumm. From there we took a ride on Eagle's Flight. Eagles Flight recieved a new fully automated control sytem since my last ride on it, at least it retains its friendly operator. What's more, I actually had a good ride on it. No, I didn't get one snap out of it, but as is common for portable Flyers, although you may not get the satisfying KERCHUNK sound, you can at least get the feel of getting into a dive bombing, then quick pull out ride pattern. Its like its just a hair off from snapping then the tub pulls out of it without the payoff.

From there we walked right across the walkway and did a spin on Revolution. Not much to report here. We skipped Funtown as it was getting late, and besides neither of had much interest in trying to cram ourselves into Howler or the Freedom Train. Starting back towards the front of the park we noted we exceeded the weight limit on the Star Spangled Carousel, and I knew from past visits that Liberty Launch is a no go for me. We next took a spin on the Rough Riders, where wemet the guy who was talking old rides and aircraft. Friendly guy who stuck around for this ride and one on Paul Rever's Midnight Ride. Rough Riders, the cars re comfortable, the belts are comfortable, the cars look cool, the cars seem to have some power to them, its just that I think there are too many cars on the floor as it was just too congested at times.

Paul Revere's Midnight Ride continues to impress as being one of the nations best Spider rides. From here we decided the line for the car ride looked a bit long. We took a look in the Liberty Bell shop. Wait, the park that put Turkey Callers instead of GUNS on its shoot em up Dark Ride has a toy department in the gift shop with all kinds of toy weapons: swords, revolvers, all the way up to assault rifles, some of which shoot real "Safety" bullets.

We make ourway to the front of the park and start taking another lap, we talk to Will for a short bit on the way past Raven and then decide to skip the Scarecrow Scrambler and head for Frightfull Falls. FRightful Falls was a walk on and so we jump into the moving log. It should be noted that although Plunge caused me problems with jumping into a moving vehicle I had no trouble with the log flume or rapids ride.

When we finsihed up with the log flume, we took a look through the front gate shops and in a memonary lapse of judgement walk up Raven hill intead of riding up. AFter checking out the front gate shops, we run our cameras out to our car, and move it up to the front row of the Legend Lot, being nice not to park on the newly laid cement. We re-enter the park and make our way to the picnic grove dodging rain that got heavier and heavier as we go along.

We finally get to the picnic grove and first head to the shelter that had the auction. At first I thought we were too late but then realized the auction stuff was in the back half of the shelter. We grabbed some free drinks and perused the items.

The highlights of the auction were the perinally popular roller coaster lift hill flags, this time they came signed and bundled so you get the complete color selection for the coaster involved. They also had various advertising signs and banners, some signed Gravity Group t-shirts, and more. They also had a rummage sale with media CD's, stationary, old maps and brochures, old souvenir cups and more. They seemed to have a fair amount of bearings left, but the bin labeled Roller Coaster Wheels was already emptied. We didn't realize the food was setup until somebody mentioned they had finished eating.

We head up the stairs to the red shelterhouse to pick up dinner. Here I got my first clue that attendance was way down this year, as only 1 of the two big shelterhouses was open. We headed right for the buffet. We dropped our tickets off in the bin provided and proceeded down the line. Once again, we get to play "What toppings do we need?" befoe knowing wha is being served. I note buns, rolls, bread, relish trays, fruit salad, baked beans, mac and cheese, hamburgers, chicken and pull pork. We fix our plates and settle into dinner. Midway through dinner they make the announcements, sometimes interrupted by the pre-recorded "Will and Pat"closing announcements. Silent auction winners are announced and its time for the live auction. The big item up for bids was the original Legend drawings, that item sold for $500, which I think is a record for a Holiday World coaster event auction. They also sold a "Holiday World" logo flag that flew out in front of the park. I participated in that one up to $50,unfortunately for me it sold for $85. They commented they go through 3 such flags each season, which gives you an idea of the wear large flags take. Perhaps the most unique items sold were Kory and Chad from Gravity Group. Each sold one half hour of their time during the ERT. During that time you could ride rides with them, talk coasters with them, have them be your personal servant, etc. Kory mentioned he had brought his work laptop and that if you won he was willing to show you anything on the laptop that he was at liberty to disclose, including all about the new coaster in China. I think they also metioned they could design a coaster for you using their design software, just rmemeber you only have half an hour. I know Paula really made a big deal of this on Twitter, but I just don't think the fans were all that into it, leading to a "lets just get this over with".

Okay, the auction was over, but the rain is getting harder, then it gets much worse, the hail starts coming down, visibility is minimal, they asked people to huddle in away from the edges of the shelter, and they turned the lights on in the blue shelter house. We continue to talk coasters, and Paula provides regular status reports and sports scores. Perhaps showing off technology, Paula sent out a Tweet looking for the first person to come up to the microphone and say "They are testing the coasters" Such use of technology. Anyway about an hour late the coasters open and we make our way to Voyage. At this point we wait in the longest Voyage line of the weekend, it was down the stairs out the doors and into the outside queue area with the lower cargo hold being closed. We get up into the station, and we hold out for the back seat, this was actually easier than you might exepect as people were eagerly trying to get on a train, any train.

Remember everything I said about Voyage being in insane mode Friday, well forget all that. We have a new Insane Mode, perhaps we should call it InsaneX10! That train could not travel the course faster it it were jet propelled, It was literally flying over the hills, and taking the curves at breakneck speed. You know how when you see a working coaster model, it looks like the train is going rediculously fast beause gravity does not scale down? Well thats what this looked like. The airtime was launching you up into the lapbar, and the laterals were tossing you around like a ragdoll. As if it couldn't get better the lightning off in the distance lit up the sky adding a whole new dimension to the ride. Wow, I've said Voyage is the greatest coaster ever made, but there are few things likely to ever match the performance of the Voyage during the Saturday ERT in all of coasterdom.

After Voyage we head back to see whats going on with Pilgrims Plunge as I thought it would be a neat ride to try at night as it doesn't have that many lights on the drop. We enter the ride queue area and walk directly to the loose article shelves. Stowing loose articles we start to approach the ride as there was a boat stopped in the station and the exit gate was open. We were told we still need to cross the bridge over the load side, which we do. When we get to the load side, the load gate is closed. A few moments later, the boat waiting at the loading dock glides forward presumeably on its merry way out onto the ride course. The boat gets as far as the end of the station area and comes to a stop. The next boat comes up to the loading dock and stops. They do not load that boat, it then advances further and stops right behind the boat in front. They bring yet another boat up to the loading dock, but they don't load that one either. Something doesn't look right here. They then bring the fourth and final boat into the station, but there is no roomfor it so it stops on the top of the lift up into the station. That boat has one rider stranded in it. After doing all this we hear the crew talking to the people in the first boat, and it doesn't sound good. Some time later they come back to us, we are the only two in the queue and tell us it won't let them start the ride, but they are going to reboot the ride and try again. We wait a few minutes for the ride to reset, they push the dispatch button and the boat at the front of the platform still refuses to budge. They then bring out the infamous Intamin black box that releases the lap bars in the boats not located in the load/unload position. They unload the first boat, and the incoming boat then close the ride. At least they were nice enough to let us exit through the boat siting in the station. That was a waste of about 5-10 minutes.

We head back to Voyage and take many rides, each one more insane than the last, whats more incredible is even with it giving first rate rides the line was still completely within the station. We got a front car ride, another back car ride, and several middle train rides,doesn't matter when its giving out rides like it was tonight. You know you are in for a treat when jaded coaster enthusiasts who don't normally react after a ride coming back with looks of shock and awe on their faces and they are hollering and cheering.

When we had about 40 minutes left before park close we decided to check out the other rides, we walked up to the Legend with Kory and Chad who by that time had finsihed their auction obligations. Legend was running one train again tonight, and it was a total walk on, so we walked right on the back seat. Legend got the same insane transformation as the Voyage, and the Four Corners of Doom were living up to their reputation. I know some have written off the Legend as it had a few sluggish years but I urge you to give it another shot, it seems to be back to the way it was when it opened.

We finished the night with a half hour long, didn't even get out of the train power ride session on Raven. Not a bad way to finish off the event and yes Raven was also in insane mode. Tonight all three HoliWoodies were in top form giving rides us mere mortals usually only dream about getting .

We then headed up to the park exit, gave our thanks to Pat, Will and Paula, and then headed out to the Legend Lot. When we got to the Legend lot there were maybe 8 cars in the entire lot, so that made it quite easy to find our car. We returned to our hotel in Tell City, and yes Paul, I see what you mean by the rollercoaster like quality of that road. We no sooner got into our room until we crahsed for the night. Next thing I know, my iPhone is giving me the "You have one hour to vacate the room" alarm clock. We push check out to the limit and are then on the road. I noted the Indiana University logo statues in peoples yards remind me a lot of devil's pitchforks.

We decide sitting in single lane slow moving traffic on I-64 was not our idea of a fun time, and tried US 60. US 60 was moving about 60mph, and it runs pretty much directly to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom (SFKK). Just after crossing the border into Kentucky, we found an IGA selling gas about 20 cents a gallon cheaper than the stations near Holiday World. Score!

We made our way to Kentucky Kingdom and make a stop on the way at Steak and Shake. Between the late check out, the time change, the drive to Kentucky Kingdom, and the lunch we didn't get to the park until almost 3pm. As we drove through Lousiville, we did not the firemen having one of their "Fill the Boot" fundraisers, which is not bad in and if itself, but when they park fire engines in the middle of the street with the lights flashing to draw attention to it, there should be a law. We were passing through right as some emergency vehicles with actual emergencies were having trouble getting through since people were ignoring the flashing lights after seeing the firetrucks being used as props.

Why do we do this to ourselves? It seems like our Kentucky Kingdom visits always come right after Holiday World visits, so maybe I'm not being all that fair to Holiday World. We pull into the parking lot and get hit with a $6 parking fee. One one hand its one of the lowest parking fees in the Six Flags organization, on the other its the first reminder we're not in Indiana anymore. So we give the state fair $6 to park on the fairgrounds then drive through the center of Kentucky Kingdom to the big lot in the middle of the fairgrounds. We drive up and down the aisles and my this lot looks busy, but who is to say what cars are there for the park, and what cars are there for other acttivities. We pull into the lot to the right of the main gate and find a parking space just a few feet from the entrance plaza.

We head to the ticket booths, and we see the employees in their new tennis ball green shirts. They do stand out, and they remind me of the shirts worn by employees at big sporting venues. We head to the one open ticket booth and look over our options. Rideman is set to buy the $55 season pass as he will be heading to SFMM in June, I have no such plans and note the one day ticket is $30. The park is also running a special, where you can get a 6 visit SFKK only pass for $30, and there is a chance I might get back here this season. I purchase the $30 Big Six pass, and the ticket seller hands me a voucher printed by the register and then proceeds to block out the section where you are supposed to fill in your information to register your pass. They direct Rideman to Guest Relations as he might get a lower pass price as he was renewing a 2008 pass. Unfortunately, when he got to Guest Relations he got the news that since his 2008 pass was isssud from Great Advenutre, he is not eligible for the renewal discount, but hey at least the ticket seller tried. We then quickly entered the park and passed though metal detection. I note that at peak times they have arrangements for "No Bags" lines and a seperate season pass gate.

We enter the park and head to the season pass processing center,yes I had to get a pass card for my Big Six pass. The line was just out the door and soon we were inside.You first head to a room where they have a bank of computers. You scan your voucher, then you do all your own data entry for the pass registration. I wonder why they don't just install a camera and printer at each terminal and completlely automate the process. After you enter your data the screen tells you to take your vocuher to the next room. In the next room they have the room devided into season pass processing and Big Six Processing, that way the workers don't have to worry about which passcard blank they are putting into the printer. We go to seperate halves of the room where agents take ou vouchers, scan them, they take our photos, and the same person hands us our passes. We pocket our passes and head into the park.

We walk past the games midway and I get my first dose of the "More Flags = More Fun"tagline. "Watching the Game = 3 flags on the fun meter, Playing the game - 6 flags" We head to the Himalayah, and after watching one cycle we board the ride. We procees to sit there as it takes about 10 minutes to get the Himalayah loaded and checked. We are rewarded for our patience with a slow moving ride. The operator though, seemed to be auditioning for the role of carney ride operator "Want to go faster, let me hear you scream!" "Want to go backwards?" It does neither of those things.

We exit the Himalayah and walk right onto the Enterprise just as it is being loaded, what timing. Its a fast spinning Enterprise which still goes completely vertical, which seems to be a rare thing for these rides anymore. I was a bit concerned with the amount of lateral shaking the ride was doing, but Rideman didn't seem all that concerend.

Next, we go to ride the Rainbow, or that was we were going to ride the Rainbow, but it seems it, like the Hellevator has been removed. The Rainbow does appear on the park map, but is not listed in the list of rides, last minute scratch, perhaps? Our next ride was Greezed Lightning, this coaster was a walk on as well, even for the back seat. Its a fast ride, you get launched forward, go through a loop, up the spike, back through the loop, through the station, up the back spike, and then down into the station. The good news is on the backwards trip through the station the were merely trimming the train rather than trying to stop it, so back seat riders get treated to that unqiue backwards airtime. We exit the ride and I start to notice something really annoying, the park has decided that any segment of fence that borders a ride must have a large "Danger" sign affixed to it. Yes, I have read about the incidents, and know exaclty why the park, or the parks lawyers, insisted on their presence, but after the first few its just overkill. I think some of my favorites were the "Danger: High Voltage Area" surrounding a gasoline powered Antique car ride, or Danger signs around the outside of the carousel railing, and one Danger sign placed right next to the entrance to the Rollerskater.

From there its to the Road Runner Express, which was using the short path to the station. The line was just to the bottom of the stairs, and we witnessed what might be the best ride crew in the park. The station can hold four cars, they had one car unloading (thanks to the lap bars releasing automatically), two cars loading, and then one car in the holding position waiting to be dispatched onto the chain as soon as the computer says it is okay. Unlike the rest of the park, this is the model of proper ride operation. This, of course, means this crew will be the crew that gets into trouble. We get sent to a car with just the two of us, so we eah take a bench and they allow us to sit in the middle straddling the T shaped lap bar. This pays off in spades ot on the course as it was a lot more comfortable in the hairpin turns. All in all, I had a much better experience on this ride than usual.

We next head down a long windy path past the Skycoaster (marked down to $15, sorry I don't fly for over $5), a Rio Grande mini train ride. The Rio Grande is a powered train ride, and was sporting the High Voltage signs, Rideman tells me the voltage involved to move that train is an alarmingly high 110 volts. We pass a disused games area that now sports a single vending machine inside a large empty area, and head back to Bluebeard's Bounty, the Pirat ride.

We head up the ramp and here is something that you don't see everyday, a push gate to get into the ride queue area. Guests have no gotten so accustomed to waiting behind any gate that the crowd seems to invariably stop at the top of the ramp until the ride operator indicates it is okay to push in on the gate an enter the queue area. The Pirat, while not the most cared for ride, still has its faux sails and rigging, which makes it better than the one at Kings Island in that regard. We were lucky enough to score an end row, and taking the advice to pick me feet up before we crested on our side, you do get some unique moments of something that might be liekend to airtime. The fully automatic, single position lapbars are a bonus for this park, helping this to be another ride that operates at a reasonable pace. At the end of the ride, you will notice the exit gates on the unload side have been chained shut, and you are instructed to exit back to the load side and they have further modified the confusing queue maze to allow for an exit path. You exit towards the now disued older picnic grove that is now reserved for use in the parks halloween event.

Finsihing that ride, we head back to the main circle loop path, we look at but do not ride the Breakdance. IT is evident the Breakdance, as well as several other things in the park got a nice coat of paint, however due to the modifications to the safety systems on the Breakdance that require every seat to be locked and unlocked by hand, we have ridden it and know the loading process is just entirely too long.

Okay, we have put it off as long as we could, its time to cross the darned bridge in the center of the park. The bridge that takes you from the front part of the park, over the fairgrounds entrance road and into the back part of the park. I swear this bridge gets higher and longer every season, even their own staff do not like it as the park staff can opt to use a ground level crosswalk. We get to the back side of the park, and we bypass several rides: The Giant Wheel, the rock wall, the go-karts, the entire waterpark. I note the waterpark has been renamed Splashwater Kingdom, rather than the former Hurricane Harbor name. I suppose given recent disasters, Six Flags thought it unwise to use the Hurricane name. I note the name is about the only thing that has changed as the theming looks to remain the same, right down to the use of what are commonly referred to as hurricane flags as theming. More Flags = More Fun, right?

We stop off at a wonderfully air conditioned comfort station, one of the things this park did do right, and I noted amogst the ammenities at the comfort stations in the park are cell phone recharging stations, for only $2 you too can have your cell phone battery rapid charged. No, I didn't try it out to see how well it works. I have to wonder how big of a market there really is for this. I also think this is a sign of the times, go to any decent size park anymore and look in the ride queues, you are likely to see people on their cell phones, not so much talking as texting, or playing games, or using the cellular internet connectivity. Those last two, particularly the internet functionality can really put a hurting to a phone battery. Every now and again I long for the days when going to a theme park meant the minute you left the house until the minute you got home, you were completely out of touch, and if you didn't have an answering machine, so much the better. Going on a two week vacation meant two weeks of being totally out of touch with the real world. I suppose you could still do that to yourself (I did in in Ireland last fall), but now we have been programmed to take our mobile devices wherever we go. Oh, where was I? Digressing, again. What a, uhm, surprise.

Anyway, Rideman reminded me of his distinct dislike for Chang, so I head to Chang alone. I breeze past the shaded but empty queue maze, note the fact the weeds and vegetation that had started to take over the ride entrance and exit have been trimmed back, and start to head up the stairs. The sign at the bottom of the stairs told me I was in for a 30 minute wait, and the line was just haflway down the stairs. I note the ride wait signs are "sponsored" by the parks pay-extra line jumping program. I think, this is a B&M and the wait is just down one flight of stairs from the station, no way its 15 minutes. I forgot three things: a) I'm not at a park that cares about ride throughput b) It's a B&M stand up, even Cedar Point decided to mothball a train because they couldn't get the trains out fast enough to run 3, c) this is Kentucky Kingdom where we only run one train, and take our own sweet time doing it. I mist have joined right after the line advnaced, because 1 circuit later I advance to the top of the stairs, two circuits later I am in the back seat queue, and three circuits later I am in the train. I take the back right 'seat' and struggle a fair bit to get the belt fastened, a feeling not unfamiliar to me on a B&M ride, but I do get the thing buckled all on my own. I head up the lift, around the turnaround and down into B&M stand up coaster goodness. I think there are 5 inversions on this one, all wonderfully intense, the mid course barely hits and all too soon its back to the station. Down the stairs and then a forced trip through the gift shop. At the exit of the gift shop, Rideman is pawin through a book, I ask what it is, and he indicated its a cheklist off all of Six Flags rides, in all of their parks - for $10. I don't buy one, but I think its a really neat idea to build chain wide synergy.

We then walk past the sites were a Chaos, a car ride, and several carnival style food trailers have been removed, to make way for waterpark expansion, namely the Mega-Wedgie (no, I am not kidding!), and Deluge waterslides. We also notice T^2 (Thats Terror to the Second Power, how's that for a geeky ride name) has a brand new entrance formed by cutting a new entrance way directly into the queue maze instead of routing people around to the old entrance at the backside of the ride. Signs laert us that a full queue house is a 2 hour wait, man what a depressing thought. Luckily the ride was only a station wait, but to say its only a station wait is both true and misleading as the seat queues can easily hold 6 trains worth of riders. We wait out the line for the back seat, dismayed by the one train operation on a weekend. After what seemed like almost a 20-30 minute wait we were on, and hey the wild hedge under the lift hill has been trimmed to the point where it doesn't brush your legs. That is an improvement. Using proper ride posture, we were able to escape the somewhat rough running ride mostly unscathed. We exit the ride, head down the exit ramp and look up at the transfer table. Uhm, I see a second set of bogies but no car bodies, and more importantly no seats on the other train. It's quite obious this ride has not yet been given its second train for this season, what are they waiting on?

We walk back and rejoin the main path, and all is not bad, I mean look they have Blizzard River open despite the ride clearly being marked as closed on the signs out front. We decline a ride on Blizzard River, I recall waiting almost 20-30 minutes in a line far shorter than the line it has today. We do take advantage of the misting fans on the main walkway. We get around to the former site of Top Eliminator Dragsters (man this park has ripped out a bunch of stuff since my last visit) you know its bad when a Six Flags park eliminated a pay extra attraction. The area around Top Eliminator has been converted to a live performace stage with a few benches. According to the park guide it hosts karaoke during the week, and live guest bandson the weekends. Today we had a band, that was alright, nothing that great. The band had an active audience of about 6 people, including 2 girls who were WAY to into it, as in I think they might have been family members of the band, or shills planted by the band to make it look better thn it really was.

I note the walkway back to where the actual Dragster ride, and Twisted Twins beyond has been sealed off with tall chain link fencing. We continue around the open path and walk under Thunder Run. Thunder Run has received a layer of tall privacy fence around its perimeter where it is near a walkway. Well, this will eliminate a popular line jumping spot/shortcut as the privacy fence seperated the queue area from the walkway. We enter the queue and its just to the bottom of the stairs, which is just past the 30 minute wait sign.

Thunder Run only has one train to start with, then they have taken lessons from Busch Gardens Tampa in that they check seatbelts first, then come back around to check lap bars. Add to this a crew that is in no hurrty to get things done, a safety spiel that they wait until after the train is loaded and checked to give, and we are talking a train heading out of the station every 6 minutes. Thats 10 dispatches per hour, and the train seats 24, no wait there is a seat roped off, 22 per ride. Thats 220 persons per hour on one of the parks major rides. That, my friends, is disgusting. After waiting entirely too long, the ride gets even more disgusting when I get into a seat, grab the seatbelt and find the two ends of the belt to have at least 2 inches between them. Did I not just spend two days riding wood coasters, in PTC trains no less, that are way more intense an airtime filled than this one? I take the walk of shame and console myself with a trip to the parks Ben And Jerry's where I order the biggest, most calorie laden sundae on the menu. Just kidding about the sundae, I do grab a lemonade to quench my thirst.

After that sad experience, we head to the Flying Dutchman. This is the wooden shoes ride sort of like a circle swing ride. It has a special spot for me as it is alledged to have come from Kings Island. In a brief moment of sanity, Six Flags actually removed the lapbars from the ride, going with just seatbelts. We take a nice relaxing wooden shoe ride, and I note the ride is mostly fully automatic, expect the turret stops lowering itself about 2' off the ground, and the ride operator lowers it the rest of the way manually. A neat fun ride.

We then notice a big privacy fence has been built behind the International Carousel flanking the restroom building blocking off the other entrance to the Northwest Territory. Add Twisted Twins, Mile High Falls, and Zeppelins to the list of rides that have gone out of service since my last visit. No wonder they sold me a six visit pass for only $30.

We finish up with a ride on Rollerskater, how come I can't ride Thunder Run, but I have loads of room in the cars of the kiddie coaster. We then make our way to the front of the park, again crossing that darned bridge. We take alook at Lonney Tunes Music Land (the parks kiddie rides area), surely putting the candy store in kiddie land is purely coincidence, right? We do a gift shop run through Exclusively Six Flags (shortened to just Flags on the park guide), and again I see nothing that even fits the description of a flag for sale. We also look in the Looney Tunes shop, where I am most confused when I come to an aisle stuffed with Mickey, Minnie, and their friends. Remind me again whose park I am visiting?

Even more confusing, Rideman asks me to look at a directional signpost located jut to the LEFT of the Himalayah, and asks me what is wrong with it. I look up and the sign clearly tells me to turn LEFT to go to the Himalayah, when clearly the ride is to the RIGHT. Rideman tried several times to get both the ride and the sign in the same frame, but just can't do it, so we look at another side of the signpost and it gets even worse. On the left hand side of the sigpost it indicates "<- Himalayah" , and the right hand side says "Himalayah ^", so this side is giving too conflicting directions to the ride, both of which are wrong as it should say "Himalayah ->" We spot an employee, not just any employee, but one wearing a suit and tie, we stop him, walk him over to the signpost and point the problem out to him. He could not have been less interested if he tried.

We then exit the park, and again I pass the "More Flags = More Fun" signs. Hmm, I still can't grasp the logic as to how the quanity of cloth decorations you have flying in the breeze correlates to the amount of fun the experience is. I mean I am a flag collector and have well over 200 flags (mostly desktop miniatures, but I do have full size versions of the flags for 8 different nations. If More Flags = More Fun, I should be enjoying a never ending fiesta. (Incidently, Spain or Mexico are not in those 8). Then again, its been pointed out to me that Voyage has 16 flags, and 16 > 6 so maybe Six Flags is right: More Flags DOES equal More Fun!.

But enough of that silliness, we head to the parking lot, and for grins and giggles plot Kings Island into our GPS. Hm, it tells us we could be in Kings Islands parking lot in 89 minutes, that 9:30, the park closes at 10. Do we try? We're coaster nuts, of COURSE we do!

We head up I-71 at legal speed and the GPS is actually a bit pessimistic as we pull into the lot at Kings Island at 9:26. The parking attendants have left, so FREE parking, not that we didn't have two valid parking passes with us. We go through that odd feeling of being salmon as we head to a park gate most people are heading out of. We througt perhaps the metal detectoon chechpoint was closed, but as we approached it a secruty guard walked up, scanned us, and we proceeded to the gate. At the turnstile, the ticket taker scans our passes and says "Last minute rides, Gentlemen?"

We head back to Rivertown and after a brief comfort stop get in line for Diamondback. The first queue house is totally shut off, and we head to the second queue area which is a little under half full. About 15 minutes later, we are being shown to a middle of the train ride in row 8. (No choice of seats). Somewhat bummed we still take our ride and get a decent amount of floater air, but its definetly no Voyage. We exit the ride and its 9:55, we race through the gift shop and zip back around and abck into line. This time the second queue area is maybe 1/4 full, so 7 minutes later we are at the top of the station stairs enjoying the fireworks. After fireworks we enter the station, and we hear the seat assignements of the groups ahead "14, 15, 16" Ugh, this doesn't sound good, we get to the front of the line "Go to row 1", are you kidding me, we practically do the 100 yard dash to row 1 before he changes his mind. So there it is, the last ride of an insane coaster weekend, on the front row of Diamondback, and I'm leaning over the clamshell which shifts your body position just enough to get a truly insane feeling ride on Diamondback, no wait, after Voyage on Saturday, I'm afraid I have to reserve insane for much more than this. Let's just say it was a great ride with strong airtime.

We exit the ride, and exit the park, and head to IHOP to end a great coaster weekend. I get home, and guess what the American flag is wrapped around the pole again, we chuckle as it looks just like when Dave arrived to pick me up, and I had fixed it then.

Next up: Who knows! I have an invite to a private party at Strickers Grove on June 21. I am also in arrears 7 trip reports, all to Kings Island, why I am I not looking forward to digging myself out of that hole?

My Flag Collection

Besides riding rollercoasters and touring the world, I also collect flags. See some of my flag collection at http://www.coasterville.com/flags.html