Photo TR: The Kiwis Take On North East/Road to Cedar Point

by **beatle11** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:02 pm

^^As mentioned above, fast pass would be a big improvement, and the food options could be better. Overall the park just feels way to corporate. It's a very good park for just having so much to ride and see, but places like Knoebels and Kennywood have a much nicer atmosphere.

by **Jojo19799** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 1:08 pm

beatle11 wrote:^^As mentioned above, fast pass would be a big improvement, and the food options could be better. Overall the park just feels way to corporate. It's a very good park for just having so much to ride and see, but places like Knoebels and Kennywood have a much nicer atmosphere.

I very much agree with this. I think this is exactly why I'm not a huge fan of CP and I have not been there for 10 years. I have been to other CF parks (just recently used the fast lane system at KI and absolutely loved it!) As much as I would love to see CP get the fast lane system, I don't think it would work out well for them. I think the q-bot system would work best since you can reserve your time for the ride while doing other things. CP is a pretty big, high capacity park afterall.

by **krazekiddd** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 2:09 pm

^I really like the electronic queue systems anyway. I think it would be easier to manage the crowds then by reserving them. I remember have a flash pass for SFMM and it was the paper tickets and there is no control over the timeframes they would arrive.

Facebook · by **ABW** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 4:46 pm

I'm one of those who just isn't in to this "paid-line cutting" business that are flash passes. I think a park should be able to produce fast enough moving lines to a point where it doesn't need it. For Magic Mountain, the operations are mediocre at best and for the most part, suck so it just gives them an excuse to have it IMO. It else gives the park a little bit of a less corporate "feel" if that makes any sense (pretty much every other major corporate park has a fast "pass" of some sort.) Anyways, that's just what I think, feel free to respectfully disagree.

by **mattnz** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 6:09 pm

Well it's been a long time, but after seeing all the fun at WCB I decided it was high time to finish our trip report with our L.A. stopover en route to New Zealand. We'd never been to Disneyland Resort before and Andrew has never even visited a Disney park (I've been to Florida) so we thought it would be a nice, relaxing way to finish up our epic back-to-back TPR trips.

'Relaxing' is NOT a word I'd use to describe Disneyland Resort! We spent two days at the resort and it was so insanely busy the whole time I'd say we only really 'sampled' what the parks had to offer. That was OK, and Andrew was blown away by many of the attractions, but it was definitely tiresome following strollers, mobility scooters and giant asses around all day! The parks are beautiful, but seem a lot smaller than the Florida parks and the guests have a whole different attitude. I'd agree it's because they're locals, whereas in Florida everyone's basically on vacation.

Although we went back and forth between parks I'll separate our reports to make it easier. Let's start with Disney California Adventure...

by **outbackjack** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 8:20 pm

Thanks for the pictures.

I really enjoy DCA, and two of my favorites aren't tops on most people's lists.

I LOVE Mermaid and Monsters Inc.

Great colors, great sounds/songs in Mermaid...and I've always liked the Monsters Inc movie.

Can't wait for CarsLand.

by **mattnz** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:43 pm

^ Cheers!

Our final update is Disneyland, the original American theme park, and what a beautiful, immaculately themed park it is. I have to say Andrew and I did get a better all-round 'Disney' experience at Disneyland. California Adventure is just a whole different kettle of fish (scroll up to see the photo TR). I'm sure with Cars Land, et al, it will be a fuller experience, but it's never going to beat its sister park next door, at least in the public's mind, because of its long, long history.

I'm not sure if it's like this all year round, but man oh man did we visit Disneyland on a busy couple of days. We only got one ride on Space Mountain, one ride on Big Thunder, and so on, as the fast passes sold out like hot cakes. We didn't make it on Star Tours, but I don't know, did we miss anything? Anyway, we got a great sample of the place, which was our goal in the first place. A surprise for us was Indiana Jones Adventure. This was awesome! I wonder how it compares to its counterpart in Tokyo - I'm guessing that's even better for some reason!

Alas we missed out on Matterhorn Bobsleds, which was down for its major refurb. Oh well, it gives us a reason to come back. It looks like such a unique and fun ride.

Thanks once again to Robb and Elissa for an amazing trip. We felt a bit sad boarding our plane back to New Zealand, as we live so far away from the rest of the world... It's quite a mission and expense to get on TPR trips, but count us in for some future fun. We're saving our pennies as we speak.