IBtacoDave

I'm guessing the viewpoints would be the same. Although as an agnostic myself I'm not willing to rule anything out.

Most recently that was an upright piano made from cinder blocks. I'm not sure what the large T is for but If I had to guess I would say it stands for tacky. Great trip report, your coaster analysis was spot on.

Other parks should take note, this is the right way to build excitement about your new attractions. Well done Mr. Dean. And on a side note... This is hands down the best thing I've read in the last week.

I think this might make you more than friends.

Photo TR: King's Island 6/5/2009 Here we are on the last day of our trip already. We were supposed to head to Hersheypark today, but after some unforeseen car trouble we ran out of money and had to go back to King's Island. We managed the entire trip on a small budget of $800 (not counting SF and CF season passes). It was nothing glamorous, lots of Wendy's and Denny's and nasty hotel rooms. I guess we can't call it a total success because we missed out on Hersheypark, but if we hadn't gone back to King's Island we may have never had a chance to ride Son of Beast (I know we wouldn't be missing much). On to the pictures... I try to not take modern technology for granted and still marvel at the simple things in life. Like this, we're about to drive through a mountain. That's almost as interesting as flying through the air while sitting on a chair! It was some kind of historic road. Back in Ohio already, this trip has flown by. Yep, we're definitely back in the Midwest. Day 2 at King's Island. Not as exciting as Hersheypark but at least we get to ride all the stuff we missed the first time. Like the Scooby Doo shooting dark ride. Not too shabby, of the three I've ridden I can safely say the SFStl version is the best hands down. That Diamondback ride was still here. Another ride we missed the first time around, the Crypt. We were in the next group to get on when we heard a bunch of people booing in the other room. We thought for sure the ride broke down. Once our ride concluded boos rang out from across the ride. I get it now. It's no Apollo's Chariot. But it's still good (also, new coaster smell). I was really looking forward to Son of Beast. This was the longest queue we waited in on the entire trip, a little under an hour. The line was backed up because on this day they were filming an episode of Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters for the History Channel. 1. Bulldoze it. 2. Build Intamin prefab woodie 3. ????? 4. Profit!!! Another ride on another drop tower... Uncomfortable rides was the theme for today. This one fits the bill. We didn't get to ride all of the coasters. We skipped this one and it's 45 minute queue. No big loss. Vortex is one of the better Arrow loopers in my opinion. It's still rough, but not nearly as bad as Ninja or Demon. The Crypt exit and Beast queue allow for some excellent views of Diamondback. Unrelated, the blueberry ice cream they sell near Diamondback is awesome! And I'm not generally known for having a sweet tooth. Earlier in the week I was underwhelmed by the Beast. This twilight ride changed my mind completely. Now I see what all the fuss is about. Obligatory knothole shot. We ended the night, and our trip, with as many Diamondback rides as we could. And bonus fireworks! And that was it, our trip has come to a close. We had a great time. This fluffy forest cat was very excited to have us back home. Thanks for reading! Next up, more coverage of our home parks SFGam & Indiana Beach!

I found this article a few weeks ago: How to Beat Carnival Games Theres a few good tips in there, and a few ridiculous ones so take it with a grain of salt .

It appears that you can still order a set here. I can't vouch for the reliability of the store but their ebay feedback is excellent. Thanks for these updates!

Excellent trip reports! I share your enthusiasm for S&S Screamin' Swings. Best flat ride ever!

I would be perfectly happy if the only addition in 2011 is a path from the first aid/lost and found building to Batman the ride.

^My source at the park confirms this. After all, they do deserve it more.

I wanted to pay tribute to Shockwave, the most under-appreciated ride at King's Dominion. I figured the best way to do so would be through the traditional Japanese art of haiku.

Now with 40% less superfluous, unnecessary adjectives... Photo TR: Dorney Park 6/4/2009 We're on day 6 of our trip and we're heading to Dorney Park. It's a charming place with some excellent rides. It was disappointing that they upcharge for their Screamin' Swing but that's my only major complaint. Here are the pictures... There it is, Dorney Park! Holy busload of buses Batman! There's gonna be a lot of kids running around today. We weren't worried though, we know the drill by now. The kids will all clear out by mid-afternoon and we'll have the park to ourselves. Like many Cedar Fair parks they allowed platinum pass holders early entry. Membership has it's privileges. Talon was first up. If you guessed that we liked it you would be correct. This is heavy machinery, serious stuff. The best thing about talon: It's not Batman the Ride. The second best thing is this sweet Immelman. It's preceded by this short Death Star trench run. Here's the upcharge Screamin' Swing. I guess they're just hoping we've never been to Cedar Point. They periodically ran it empty throughout the day. What a waste. We love a good mouse. This one was good. Not Arrow mouse good, but good nonetheless. Continuing down the midway towards Hydra now. It seduces you with its unique pre-lift inversion. It adds a lot to the ride in my opinion. It's short, slow, and funny lookin'. Just like me! There's Steel Force in the background. Time to work our way there. I like the atmosphere here at Dorney Park. Nice and relaxing. Goose, gosling, and trout all living together in peace. Dear Six Flags America, See those tall, green things along the path? Those are called trees. They provide shade for guests and are aesthetically pleasing. They also keep your park from looking like a lifeless slab of asphalt. They are relatively inexpensive and as a bonus they convert carbon dioxide into the oxygen that we breathe. Love ya, Dave Thunderhawk was a little rough, but still not bad considering its age. We finally made it to Steel Force. The mid course break run really ruins the last half of Mamba, but I didn't get that feeling on Steel Force. That combined with the tunnels and lakeside location ranks Steel Force a bit higher than Mamba in my book. Don't worry Worlds of Fun fanboys, they're both really good rides. Like the other two rides named Revolution I've reported on, I refuse to get on this. There's a nice assortment of flats here. Like this Sea Dragon... Monster... Meteor... And a duel S&S drop tower. Also a whip. They don't have many of these in the Midwest so we had to check it out. I've never seen a gun on a kiddy carousel before. They have 3 kids coasters here. This is the largest. These Voodoo pops will soon be replaced by the more PC Possessed pops. Is this a cookie or a brownie? I'm not sure of the shelf life, but these sugary confections usually seem like they've been sitting for a while Bonus points for a pinball machine. Nice going! We ended the day with a mini-marathon on Steel Force... And a few more rides on Talon for good measure. As the sun set on Dorney Park we realized our trip was sadly nearing its end. We're heading back to King's Island tomorrow for the credits we missed as our East coast trip concludes. Thanks for reading!

^Bert may have gotten a front of the line pass but that doesn't mean that he did the challenge in an hour. There is no moral code that reality show producers follow in order to keep shows "real". It's all about editing footage to make the shows as suspenseful and entertaining (I use that term loosely) as possible. That gun on Pawn Stars isn't really worth $5000, the Dinner Impossible guy didn't really make it on time like they say (the taping I was at he was over 20 minutes late), the American Pickers guys didn't just go up to a random strangers house and stick a camera in their face. These cable and network reality shows are to hold your interest for the purpose of ratings, not to accurately document "reality". I for one find it hilarious that Cedar Point is going to these lengths instead of just admitting that the challenge was fabricated for the show.

What is the size limit of the photos? I've shrunk it three times but after trying to submit the third time I got the following error: Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact administrator by other way.

^Thanks a lot! Photo TR: Six Flags Great Adventure 6/3/2009 The next park on our East coast trip is Six Flags Great Adventure and Wild Safari. Great rides and fantastic customer service added up to a very fun day at the park. I only regret not having more time to spend there. And now the pictures... We've made it to Six Flags Great Adventure! The Safari restrooms offer a better view of Kingda Ka than you'll find in the park. The safari opened earlier than the park, that means we get to experience the wildlife without sacrificing any rides on El Toro. These guys know the truth about Kingda Ka's "airtime" hill...It's just a forceless slope. Along with a world class wooden coaster, SFGadv also shares Wildebeest in common with Holiday World. But I'm sure you gnu that already. The safari is a must do attraction at Six Flags Great Adventure. Awww... Where else can you see bears doin' it? We named the one on the bottom Rex Grossman. The bears were really active on our visit. If not for El Toro and Bizarro they would have been the highlight of the day. It takes more than smoke and fire to fool this monkey, he still calls that ride Medusa. After a fun drive through the safari we made it to the park in time for the rope drop. Not knowing how crowded it would be, we made a beeline to Kingda Ka. We had gone the whole trip not expecting to ride Kingda Ka. Lightning had struck it just a few weeks before hand. Despite rumors that it would be down well into June, they fixed it just in time for our visit. This kitty lives in between Kingda Ka and El Toro. Here's what we came here for... We've had some great luck with queue times on our trip. Today was no exception. Everything was a walk-on all day with the exception of Kingda Ka (10-15 min.). I don't understand why there aren't more Intamin pre-fabs around. Are they much more expensive than GCI's? Whats the deal? After 4 or 5 rides on El Toro we had to catch our breath. Here's a photo you've never seen before. I hear this log flume is fun but we didn't ride. Kind of like Adventure Express at KI, I wasn't expecting much from this mine ride but it was actually pretty fun. Bizarro was next, we really like this one too. Here's a reminder that maintenance jobs are not only thankless but also can be quite dangerous. I consider myself a thrill seeker, but seriously if I was that guy I'd be pooping down my leg. Skull Mountain seems like a really good family coaster. We've been to 5 parks so far on this trip and this is the first pinball machine. Batman was next...It reminded me of Batman the Ride and Batman the Ride. They're all the same to me. We got held up for a while at Nitro while they changed trains. We only rode once and my initial reaction was underwhelmed. I wish we would have ridden it a few more times as I'm sure it's better than what I initially thought. Superman was next... Then on to Great American Scream Machine, the second of three now extinct coasters on our trip. A lot can happen in a year I guess. It brought back some painful memories of Shockwave at SFGam. We should have saved it for later in the day because I did get a pretty bad headache. My source at the park tells me they may use this building to contain Joker's Jinx. We couldn't spare the time to ride this top spin. I really would have liked to have ridden the parachutes but we skipped them too. The antique carousel had these predator/prey paintings across the top. Also, giant chickens! Now that the rest of the coasters were taken care of, it was back to El Toro. Between rides we rode Rolling Thunder. It made El Toro seem that much better. Six Flags America take note: Foliage and fans, this is how you do it. We skipped the tiger show for more rides on El Toro. I regret nothing. We spent the rest of the day going back and forth from Bizarro to El Toro. I thought the audio was a bit too loud in the station and on the lift (so loud it hurt my ears). The smoke and fire were nice I suppose but I'm not sure it was worth the money they spent. It's still one of my favorite steel coasters. Our day concluded with a very rare ride on El Toro in the rain. We had a fantastic time at SFGadv. Tomorrow it's on to Dorney Park! Thanks for reading.