PTR: Hector's 2008 adventures!

OH.... nice shots Hector! :0) No thanks for the boobs... but thanks for the roof top shot of you! Why can't we see you naked in a fountain.... spitting water? LOL.... JJ... no seriously. :0)

I have only been to LV once .... about 4 years ago....with an EVIL ex.... your pix make we want to go back... withOUT an evil ex.

Awsome photo's there, Vegas is an awsome place. Is it me or are they buliding something everywhere though? Anyway great report

It's nice to see City Center coming along, I can't wait until it's done. My sister lives out there and every time I go visit her we try to go to the gardens at the Bellagio and they're always closed! It's always in a transition phase, last time they were buliding for the display that they have right now. Nice to see it in picutres at least.

Nice pictures Hector! Is there a Hector fountain pic spitting water? LOL.

Palazzo is such a nice place, it almost doesn't seem like it should be in Vegas. Only complaint, no buffet! Oh well, Wynn's buffet is close enough. Yummy.

Very Mini Update from today. Castle Park in Riverside has been the small park I grew up with. While trips to Disneyland were every few years, we would usually head out to Castle Park at least once a year. Now part of the mega Parque Reunidos family, the park is adding two ride this year. One has already opened and is a Larson 8 tub Flying Scooters themed to Dragons, while the second is the Screamin' Demon (according to their website) which is a Fabbri Spinning Madness (it's the cute little 30 Meter model despite what RCDB says) and it's nearing completion. The track work is done as far as I could tell and a few pieces from the station were missing, so it shouldn't be much longer before the ride actually opens.

We got there around 8 and purchased our unlimited ride bands, which they're currently running a promotion that if you purchase a regular priced wristband for $25 you get the rest of the summer free until September 14. We took a spin on Fireball (Larson Fire Ball), Dragon Flyer (Larson Flying Scooters), Merlin's Revenge (a new credit for me, and a Vekoma Junior Coaster 207m), Dragon's Tower (S&S Power Double Shot), and the Tilt-a-Whirl (Sellner Tilt-A-Whirl) A good day for only being their abotu an hour and a half.

I apologize about the pictures, but I forgot my camera at home so i used my phone.

This is going to change?

Looks very small but it may be a lot of fun

From the outside of the park you can see the track is done

Nice to get an update from you Hector! I am just finishing up a camping trip with my mom and dad... they "sent" me to Dollywood for my bday... and I finally got to ride Thunderhead and Myster Mine which were both totally awesome! :0) Can't wait for you to head my way. I upgraded my day ticket to a season pass for DW.... so if you ever come this way I can get you a little bit of a discount on a ticket. :0)

Cool Pics. Weird that you should put this up, as my cousin was just telling me about Castle Park yesterday (I've never been there & didn't know much about it). Sounds like a cool little park though, with a fairly good selection of rides .

Hey Hector! What are you up to? Any upcoming parks? I'm going to meet up with coasterbear30 and coasterfreak80 at SFOG this Sat. Whenever you come to this side of the country... let us know... and we can meet up at SFOG, DW, or wherever! :0)

^^ You should go, it's a really fun place, and they have really, really good mini golf! The rides are pretty standard county fair rides, but it's still a fun place to go if you're in the area (or looking for more credits)

^ & ^^^ nothing big planned until later this year when I head off to NYC and SFGAdv for my birthday in September, and I may have something after that, but nothing too close to you guys this year. Next year may look good though, we'll see.

Well that is cool Hector.... NYC and SFGAdv sounds pretty fun! I would love to go myself. Next year I am going to try to hit many more parks than this year.... Trying to plan vaca more around more parks. I think coasterbear30, coasterfreak80, and I are going to try to hit 5 or so parks in one run in the Spring.... all around the Ohio area. Holiday World, SFKK, CP, KI, and Beech Bend! Then of course we have our home parks SFOG and DW!

Anyway Happy early B-day.... it should be awesome.... Mine was awesome going to DW and spending quality time with my family!

It's been a while, but it's time for another TR from Hector! YAY! This time it was off to Universal Studios Hollywood for their Halloween Horror Nights, featuring the same mazes as last year, but "different." I didn't go last year, so I couldn't tell you the differences, but I can definitely say i was glad I didn't because I was definitely not that impressed this year. Don't get me wrong, The mazes they had were excellent quality, but something just felt "off" about the whole thing. I'll definitely take Knott's Scary Farm over Hollywood's HHN for now.

The night started later then I hoped so by the time we got there, it was already about 7:30 so we headed down to the Lower lot and took a couple of spins on Mummy and into the first house of the night The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Back in Business. I definitely think it was the best maze they had. The smells were more then enough to throw me off, and the set designs were great!

Rant time though, I'm definitely going to have to say lay off the squirting water Universal, not every single one of your attractions has to soak us. It gets really annoying after a while when EVERY SINGLE FREAKING MAZE/ RIDE/ WALK-THROUGH HAS SOMETHING SQUIRTING US WITH FREAKING WATER.

Next up we headed over to the Terror tram to walk around the movie sets (and again, get squirted with water...) the highlight for me definitely had to be the bunnies with chainsaws! There was also a total Disney Dork moment on the Tram as the guide on our way back was doing the stretching room spiel from Disney's Haunted Mansion, before getting squirt with water... again... but they did show us a red band trailer for The Wolf Man starring Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins.

We went back up the the upper lot and conquered A Nightmare on Elm Street: Home Sweet Hell, which was another extremely well done maze, except we again get squirted with water... Since it was right there, we headed right over to Friday the 13th: Camp Blood. Another fantastic maze; and yet again we get squirted with water... It just got damn annoying at this point. Universal's House of Horrors, the permanent Maze they always have set up, was great, but no different then any other time of the year. I actually think that was the only thing that didn't squirt us with water, or we must have just missed it.

After going through all the mazes, we went and saw a bit of Chucky's Insult Emporium, which aside from the performer sounding like a gay Brooklyn-er, I thought it was hilarious! Next up was The Simpson's Ride, which was a lot better then I was actually expecting. We waited about 30 minutes for it, and I didn't feel like it was a waste of my time. After that we headed over to the last performance of Bill and Ted's which I thought was great. I can't wait to see how Florida's compares as some of the jokes just wouldn't work out there. The park was closed by the time we got out so we hung out for a bit before heading out for home.

Overall, I would say it's a good event that I definitely don't think is worth $54 yet. Hopefully next year they come back with an additional maze or two and a completely different theme (which I think it will since I keep hearing the deal with New Line was only for 2 years)

Enough of my blabbing, on with some pics!

Good Night Freddy.

It was almost 1AM and they were still doing their thing.

That I will definitely give it.

RUN! They're coming out of the Fog!

Spooky London street

Definitely NOT recommend for those under the age of 18.

I was trying to get a pic of this in one of the Scare zones, but the monsters wouldn't leave me alone lol This was the best I could do.

Yeah, Shrek 4-D is most definitely my Nightmare

There were too many pushy people to stop and try and get a good pic without using my flash, so you get a VERY bright War of the World set taken over by Freddy Kruger.

The side of the Psycho house.

In the Queue they showed a few death scenes from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise as well as some clips from Universal's classic monster movies.

In case you forgot which maze you are at.

I think I saw this in a movie once...

Biggest reason to get to the Lower Lot first.

Power 106 (local [c]rap station) was in front of the Simpon's Ride so you get a lightly off center picture. I like that they had clowns with chainsaws in this area too.

The scare zones were pretty cool too. I had more fun walking around these more then some of the mazes.

Turn off the lights and it's what nightmares are made of!

Biggest reason I hate using a flash, it washes out the awesome lighting job done by the creative team.

Freddy's Girls are far from your worst nightmare.

One of these things are not like the other.

They had the iconic red and green striped patterned cloth all over the entrance marquee.

The entrance gates are just waiting to swallow our souls

I liked this pic better, but I was too lazy to wait for it to turn again.

Welcome to Your worst nightmare.

I asked an entertainment guy about the water, since it bugs the hell out of me too...

"Well, what else do you want us to do? It wouldn't be realistic if Jason just chops a guys head off and there wasn't blood."

Hey hey! Good to see another Hector update! Mediocre haunt perhaps, these pictures still make me want to see both the Hollywood and Florida events. Glad you shared them.

And bless you for the Freddie Girl pic. After seeing her in Robb's thread, and this one, I'm a fan.

And remember friends, USH is for squirters!

Knotts has a squirter now in slaughterhouse.

Great update hector. I wanted to do hhn this year but my friends opted for knott's(still a great time). I did hhn last year and I gotta agree with you about the squirting. It's cool in a maze or 2, but done too much it just gets kind of annoying. & as for the Freddy girls...when are they going to get their own maze?