Bas does TPR West Coast Tour 2009

How far does your camera zoom? It seems to have a pretty decent range.

Great pictures.

 

Your camera is much better than mine. Some very impressive and sharp pictures.

 

Thanks, but remember, it's not all to the camera to take pictures. I've seen people with $400 SLR's make crappy pictures

 

How far does your camera zoom? It seems to have a pretty decent range.

 

The lens itself is 10x (6mm-60mm), and with a little photoshopping and cropping I can even zoom in further, but that reduces quality as you can see in some of the pictures. I try not to use more than 3x digital zoom to keep everything as sharp as possible.

 

If you (or somebody else out there) want(s) to know more:

http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/dcc/data/2007-/2008_ps_sx110_is.html?lang=us&categ=srs&page=pssx&p=1

Bas does TPR West Coast Tour 2009

Day 4 (Part II)

Six Flags Magic Mountain

 

So after the super lunch it appeared that a little fry decided to stop halfway in my esophagus it would remain there for two days. The rest of that day was like torture, every breath, every swallow felt like I was getting stabbed. Worried that something serious would happen to me I stopped at the First Aid and the friendly people over there checked my vitals and everything was in the green. This meant that I wasn’t going to die and the only option I got was to hope for the stupid fry would slide down, eventually.

 

But that didn’t take away the fact that we were still at Six Flags Magic Mountain and there were still lots of awesome coasters waiting for us. Riding them did hurt, but so did standing still or sitting down for that matter. So I just kept on riding, silently hoping the vertical G’s would pull the fry down.

 

The only coasters left to ride were Scream!, Colossus, Goliath and one of the kiddies. Thanks to our Q-bots all rides were done in no time. Scream was a very good ride, not the most powerful, but definitely more powerful than Bizzaro/Medusa. The parking lot didn’t bother me at all. Coasters like this just don’t need theming to be good.

 

Colossus was, after Terminator and the Santa Cruz Dipper, the best woodie on the trip. From pictures I expected the ride to be very tame because it was really drawn out and had huge turns without laterals. I am so glad I was wrong! The ride was very fast and had serious airtime. Definitely one of the most surprising coasters on the trip.

 

Having done all the credits, Jeremy and I took it easy, rode a coaster here and there, went up to Sky Tower to enjoy the beautiful view and eventually made our way to dinner. After dinner we regrouped and John and I marathoned Riddler’s Revenge till park closing.

 

And while the GP left the park, we headed to Terminator for some nighttime ERT. When we arrived, the awesome cowboy Neil also opened Déjà vu for us! I rode Terminator for quite a long time. Since there were two trains, nobody had to get, except for the ones who wanted to change rows. I took some nice pictures of Terminator, but soon felt the urge to ‘Take The Tunnel’ again and rode until the ERT was over.

 

Terminator was an awesome coaster. The speed it gains from the drop is never lost. The ride had little but strong pops of airtime everywhere, more than any GCI I’ve ridden. I’m not a fan of the tunnels, but the rest of the layout is very cool and in the end, Terminator is just better than Troy (but only just!).

 

Once again, I want to thank everybody who was even remotely involved in making the day the best on the trip. Thank you all and thank you very much!

Terminator panorama (large: http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/829/terminatorj.jpg )

Riddler (and a bit of batman)

Superman needed some minor fixing

Tatsu doing one of his rolls, and he's doing it good

Superman standing almost as tall as the tower (or is it taller?)

More beautifull views of the park

Final helix

Seriously the best part of the ride

Tatsu is about to "Take The Pretzel Loop"

But who needs an hotel when you've got TATSU

Our hotel. If you would trip on the lobby carpet, you would basically fall into SFMM

"Goooing doooown...."

The skytower an awesome place to take pictures from

Ehm...who gave that train steriods?

Superman being artsy

Goliath's awesome drop

Hi Jenn, Hi Scott

Goliath was up next!

And Clark Kent in SuperZoom!

Another closeup of the Superman train.

There reason is that from every spot in the park you see about half of the parks coasters.

Now this random order of pictures may look amateuristic, but there are all taking from nearly the same spot

Scream is 'Taking The ZeroGRoll'

Since when does Goliath run 4 trains? At the same time ??

Colossus provided some good photo-ops for Goliath

Or at least take pictures of others riding Scream!

But first we shall ride Scream!

I you want to go good, go front seat.

Goliath, my personal favorite of the trip.

Part II

Bye Six Flags Magic Mountain!

Bye X2

Bye Tatsu

Thank you Terminator Crew!

Although Deja Vu was open, I think only 5 people or so rode it.

And the on-ride-photo flasher also provided some light.

But some came out nice

The darkness didn't make it easy to take pictures

Having fun guys?

And there's off!

Is this the T-750 or T-850?

Terminator: Salvation: The Ride: The Coaster: The Tunnel: The Preshow: The Ride

Bye Riddler, you were awesome at night!

Look at us pretending to be cool

*aaah*

*oooh*

Bas & The Bugs (sorry Chris)

Dinner time!

It was too light to make good motion-blurs, but I think they turned out OK

Enough of the show, time for coasters!

Neither will you see me in a spherical cage riding on a dirtbike!

But some where just awesome. You won't see me pulling that off.

but they were quite nice

The tricks weren't groundbreaking

The show was pretty fun

Tatsu doing some flying

And another one

A close-up on terminator

Seriously, I LOVE your pics, although I don't like the Photoshopping you did .

 

Brings back so much good memories from my SFMM-visit this Summer (We stayed at the Best Western)!

 

Thanks

 

And better than Troy? Hm tough one, especially cause Troy stands out in Toverland, and Terminator is 'just one of the good coasters' in SFMM.

Guess I'll have to ride them some more to decide .

^What is wrong with the photoshopping?

 

Glad you enjoyed SFMM, Bas! After all the negative things people have to say about it (Like Cedar Point), your TR really displays how great of a park it really is. Keep up the great reports, yours are incredibly fun to read

 

Chris.

^What he said. Amazing pics!!

Bas does TPR West Coast Tour 2009

Day 5

Universal Studios Hollywood, Scandia and John’s Incredible Pizza

 

Today we had to get up super-early. And with our stomachs still turned upside-down and inside-out from all the ERT at SFMM the day before, it surely wasn’t easy. But it was for a good cause, a very good cause. Universal Studios put together a little backstage tour for us, plus some other surprises.

 

As the bus rolled into to Studios, we hung around near the globe, but were shortly escorted to the lower lot and entered the Mummy building, in a non-sexual way, from the back door. Our tour guide went a 150% and told us about nearly every screw and bolt in the ride. We started in the maintenance bay, continued to the station area, and via the ‘dark ride’ section we entered to main ride area.

 

Because the people at Universal are cool people, we were allowed to do pretty much everything to everything in the area, including the coaster track. When everybody was done with whatever they were doing to the track, we headed up to the operator-room and eventually went down for some rides.

 

The first half of the ERT was with all the lights on and the effects off. And halfway through the effects were slowly started and eventually the lights went out. Mummy was a cool ride, but it was very short and the effects were mainly figures painted on boards with glow-in-the-dark-paint. No match for the effect of the Florida version. But nonetheless, the ride was awesome and the view behind the scenes made the ride something really special.

 

When the ERT was over, we all headed back up to the upper lot. For some reason I thought it was funny to take the stairs instead of escalators. But apart from it being faster, it was also killing and I reached the top when my lungs were about to start a strike.

 

We only had limited time at USH so we first hit the Simpsons ride, as that one would get the longest line of the day. From all the simulators I’ve ridden, Simpsons is by far the best. The show played is super funny and the movements are well synced and plain awesome. Our next stop was at the Studio Tour, and apart from a few things I recognized, the tour was kind of a disappointment.

 

By the time we got off the tour, the lower lot had opened and we did Backdraft. Now, most people weren’t that impressed by it, but the fire effects and surprise at the end didn’t make it a waste of time. Plus Kurt Russel is awesome.

 

Our last ride in the lower lot was the Jurassic Park River Adventure. The ride was awesome, the dino’s weren’t lifelike, but that’s not a big issue. The point is that it HAS dinosaurs AND a huge drop. The ride is my #2 water ride, with #1 being the one at USF.

 

Back on the upper lot we had lunch and then gotten so late that we could only do one ride before we had to leave. I opted for Terminator 23:D, but eventually we rode Shrek, which was ok, but nowhere near great. After Shrek, I did some shopping in the park and at the Citywalk, and then we headed out for Scandia!

 

Scandia was an arcade/minigolf that happened to have 2 coasters. The Screamer was awful. It was rough as a woodie, while it’s a steel. And from some reason, if you are over 5ft, you will hurt one of your knees. The second coaster (forgot the name) was just a kiddie, just another credit.

 

After Scandia we had dinner at John’s Incredible Pizza, not only because they had some awesome pizzas, but mainly because the place had a credit. After whoring ourselves the credit, we enjoyed to pizza in all its tastes and headed out for Carlsbad.

Group photo

And suddenly we are at the Simpsons

Forget the tour, ERT is commencing!

You all could at least 'prentend' to like the tour.

Houston...Houston are you receiving this?

Dude, gold statues are SO 1500 B.C.

NOTED

More coaster track

Thankfully our tour guide managed to survive the robot's attack

And there is me!

And here we are at the ride area

Launch track (with artsy 'fail' effect)

Dude, you don't look so well

A peek in the darkride-section

Screw the english, Egyptians invented the phone!

Now this is how you build a coaster station (CP, SF, are you reading this?)

Ooh, layout

Nerd shot

Tour Guide! Watch out for that robot!

Maintenance Bay POV?

NOTED

Gnaaoorrroooaaargghh

Where are we again?

While most people have a picture of the globe, how many have a picture of the globe with the fountains turned off?

Universal's where it's at, baby!

Part II

Another day comes to and end!

And of course we take the 'party' entrance!

Pizza time!

The minigolf course was very themed, but we had to leave already

Whores

The little coaster

See what I mean?

To Scandia, that is

and one more entrance shot, and we're off!

One more globe shot...

Hi Ben!

I had to skip Terminator 23:D, but I managed to get an exteriour shot.

I *so* want this car

Awesome ride, gets you pretty wet too, in a good way.

But soon went into Supernova-mode

Backdraft started small and steady

If my ceiling was 20ft. I would get on of these guys in my living room.

Best. Sim. Ever.

Which concludes the Studio Tour

I can only image how Natalie must have felt seeing this.

Desperate Hourseviwes Lane was closed because of filming. Thank god, because I hate that show.

Glaaaoooaargh

Hey buddy how's it hanging? (my god, by humour has hit rock bottom)

The King Kong set was pretty neat.

Watch out for that flo..bloobloombooloob

Anybody hungry?

The crashing brige, to bad it doesn't actually crash

You could easily spot the Warner Bros. Studios from the escalators.

Fun:) That was interesting what you did to the 'leaving the studio tour' photo. The studio tour sign was normal, but everything else was backwards! Caught me off guard.

 

Chris.

Bas does TPR West Coast Tour 2009

Day 6

Seaworld San Diega and Belmont Park

 

Our day started with a short visit to Seaworld in San Diego. I am so not into marine parks as somebody can be, but I heard the park had something that Jeff Johnson would call a credit. Unfortunately, Journey to Atlantis had a lot of downtime, so I just dealt with it, followed the group and hoped something mildly interesting with cross my path.

 

We started by doing the observation tower, from where we could see the surrounding area, covered in clouds. We could also spot Belmont, the seaside park where we would spend the 2nd half of the day. After the tower we looked at the dolphins, got lunch, petted rays, rode a rapids and watched some fish. All very interesting if you are into that kind of thing.

 

As Atlantis wasn’t showing any sign of life, we got to see the Shamu show. I kinda liked to show, I was really impressed by how the huge orcas can simply jump several feet out of the water. It was also pretty funny seeing people get soaked in the (you guessed it) soak-zone.

 

After the show, we headed to Atlantis, which was still down, so we headed to the Arctic simulator, which was pretty bad, but the exhibits were pretty nice. And thank god, finally Atlantis opened. The ride is pretty fun, considering you are in a boat riding a coaster. But other than that, it’s just a water-ride. I suppose the one at Orlando should be a lot better with the theming and all.

 

Before we had to leave for Belmont, we took a quick peek at the penguins and sharks and headed for the exit. After a short drive we arrived at Belmont and we were taken to the beach deck next to the flowrider (more on that later). Since the flowrider session was still a couple of hours away, most of us hit the attractions in the park. The park had the basic flat rides, along with some really weird flat rides, but the main attraction of the park is the Giant Dipper. If you look at the age of the Dipper, it is surprising to see how ‘smooth’ it actually is. It doesn’t come near the Dipper of Santa Cruz, but the ride is fun, especially at night, but more on that later too.

 

So after hanging out near the rides for a while, it was time to start our sessions on the flowrider. Basically, a flowrider is an artificial wave you can either surf or bodyboard on. While it seems easy from the side, it’s pretty damn hard not to fall off or crash or topple or drown. I wasn’t any good on the bodyboard and even worse on the surfboard, but I was an incredible experience. If you ever come across one of these (and it’s over 85 degrees), ride it.

 

When the flowrider sessions were over, we had a lot of time to kill before the ERT on Giant Dipper at 11 PM, thankfully we got a lot of food and drinks. Mix that with some TPR-takeovers of, say, hoverbumpercars and mirror mazes, and you get yourself a pretty good time.

 

At 11, we all headed over to the Giant Dipper where I brought a little surprise. For some reason, I thought it would be cool to get glowsticks for everybody, and ride a coaster with the glowstuff. I still haven’t found the reason, but it was indeed pretty cool. Now, for some reason I totally forgot to take pictures, so you’ll have to look at one of the other PTR’s to actually see it.

And because my thought-patterns are completely random, I always take pictures of sign afterwards. So here we 'were' at Sea World

More shark

I think only the people on the trip will get this one

Combined with a large splash

The large drop

Kasplooshj

There where these cow-dolphins who spun round while they were swimming. Weird to see, but also very interesting

Time for the flume-coaster

They might as well call it the 'free shower zone'

Incredible to see how agile these huge animals are

For the girl's sake, I hope the orca got his breakfast this morning

Pretty neat to see

Time for the show

Noted

Having fun guys?

Everybody's geared up for the Rapids

Dave! Look out for that Octupus!

Dolphin

Belmont in the distance

Grain Silo: The Ride

The Shamu pool from the observation tower.

When we arrived, some guy was blowing (or sucking?) this hose. Very odd thing to do to an hose.

Part II

Another Dipper Panorama, thank you for reading and goodnight

If you look real good, you can see the blue thingies are the glowsticks.

See what I mean?

The claw-thing was being very artistic that night

Time to get some more rides in.

The park also had this huge ass flowrider, where you can actually surf the wave-barrel

When at Belmont, look for this sign!

The beach deck area look really awesome at night. To bad it emptied out pretty early

Guys! It's been two minutes!

And then the bar opened

Coulds should be banned to come even NEAR the sun during sunsets.

Flowrider Time!

Exited guys?

Shouldn't be too hard picking out the TPR-members in this train.

Take the tunnel?

Dipper might not be large, but it sure is a fun ride.

more Dipper

Gaint Dipper Panorama

Is it just me, or is Shamu in this picture spewing projectile whale vomit at the trainer who is running in fear?

 

 

 

Really awesome pictures!!!!

 

Though I am jealous you managed to get the “guy blowing the hose” picture. I missed that photo

I love how Robbie is squarely focused on Natalie on the Giant Dipper.

 

 

What's up with my face on the group photo shot on the bar? I look so disgusted...

Bas does TPR West Coast Tour 2009

Day 7

Legoland, Castle Park and Disney Resort

 

Today started with a half day at Legoland. We arrived early to the park because they had prepared some ‘alternative’ ERT for us. We started with the Egyptian shooting gallery, followed by some rides on Project X, their mouse coaster. The coaster was pretty fun, but not very long. Combine that with a good height and you’ll get a pretty high speed at the end, and some very powerful brakes. You’ll what I’m talking about later.

 

After the Project X coaster, we got ourselves a ride on the dragon coaster. The actual coaster is pretty boring, but the ‘prelift’ section is almost a darkride with lots of Lego animatronics. As soon as everybody got their credit in, we headed over to Knight Tournament, which is a robocoaster. A robocoaster (not Robb-o-coaster) is a pair of seats connected to a robotic arm. The arm has a series of axis it can rotate on and it can basically do everything in every direction. The ride was a bit short to my opinion (way to long according to most), but it was a lot of fun.

 

Now that the park officially opened, we split up and decided to meet again by the Fire Academy. We started out going left of the entrance, because it was the way to our last credit. I don’t remember the name, but it was a kiddie in the dinosaur area, nothing special.

 

After the coaster we did the fairytale boat ride, some autopia with boats and most of us queued up for the mini log flume. I did not, instead I went to get some food and take pictures. When the rest got off the log flume, we went into miniland, enjoyed the scenery and then it was time to head out for Fire Academy.

 

For those of you who do not know Fire Academy, it is a team based fire-fighting game. You board fire trucks with groups of 4. Pumping levers inside the truck makes the thing move towards some houses. When at the houses, everybody steps out and starts pumping water to the guns, which are aimed at a fire. When there’s enough water collected into the ‘flame’ the fire goes out and you rush back into the truck and go back to the starting position.

 

Now imagine that ride being taken over by TPR. Our team: Team EuJelly consisted of Chris , Darren, Gary and me, and because of our combined strength, we won!

 

When everybody had their fun at the fire academy, we went back to the bus and headed to Castle Park. Castle Park looked a lot like Scandia, it was an arcade with a mini-golf and some attraction. Castle Park’s rides on the other hand, were a lot bigger and larger in numbers. Upon arriving, it was advised to do the scooting gallery first, as it was very low capacity. The shooting ride looked like fun, but because my gun wasn’t working, it was just a really boring darkride.

 

The park soon closed and we got ERT on its coasters, a vekoma rollerskater, a really ghetto spinning mouse and a kiddie. They were all pretty standard, pretty fun (scary) to ride, but really nothing special. After the ERT we had dinner inside a circus-ish place and when we were filled with pizza’s, we got some time in the arcade and mini-golf course. But the gaming cannot last forever and we headed to our last hotel of the trip. This was right next to the Disney Resort. And since Disneyland was open till 12:00AM, we went to Disneyland!

 

At Disneyland we decided to do a credit run, as that would leave us less to do on the other days. We started off with Nemo, which was bound to get long lines during the day. The ride was pretty funny, but not really exciting to keep you interested for the full duration of the ride. We also had time for one last ride on Space Mountain. However, I wanted Space Mountain to by my #200 (how dorky, I know), so that would have to wait.

Bye Disney, We'll be back

No, this is not the Haunted Mansion, it's just Main Street at night with people moving faster than my shutter.

Space Mountain

I could watch these dudes for hours. Mine, Mine, MINE!, minemine, mine, Mine.

We all come together in the yel....ehm...blue submarine. We all come ....

Nemo (yes he is in there, just look closely)

Some king's Carousel

DISNEY!!!

Hi Tyler

Or Screamin Demon, what ever suits you

Spinning Mouse Of Doom, Death, Destruction, Despair and Distress

Why they named it Castle Park is still a mystery to me

Goodbye Legoland, Helloo Castle Park

This dude goes waaay back

Hey Lady, aren't you supposed to be green/blue-ish?

The White Horse? huh? Oh! the White House

Treasure Island

Ha!, I went to Vegas after all!

The Luxor

Vegas Baby ! Vegas!

Ok, what idiot photoshopped my avatar into 'Legowood' ?

Vaguely familiar

Lego speedway

Dinosaur coaster

Remember I told you how hard the brakes were? They were this hard.

Why are Scott and Jenn in every picture I took of them?

Project X

Egypt Adventure (I made that one up because I forgot the name)

No, you are not my father, he is at home mowing the lawn!

Legoland Sign!

Bas does TPR West Coast Tour 2009

Day 8

Knott’s Berry Farm, Adventure City and Disney Resort

 

We started our day with a visit to Knott’s. We would stay here until somewhere in the afternoon, and then head over to Adventure City for a credit run, and do some Disney later that night. When we arrived at Knott’s, ERT was provided on Silver Bullet and Xcelerator.

 

Silver Bullet was a pretty mediocre ride. The drop was shallow and the inversions pretty forceless, but the helix very powerful, if only it would last as long as Goliath’s. Yet the coaster was my favorite in the park, so image how bad the rest is . Because of the super capacity of the B&M, everybody got their rides in soon and headed over to Xcelerator to get that credit in. I choose to outsmart everybody and stayed on Silver Bullet. And it paid off, while everybody was waiting for the technicians to approve Robb’s ducttaping, I was enjoying my rides on Silver Bullet.

 

Eventually, after half a dozen rides by myself, I headed over to Xcelerator and hopped in. Xcelerator is with Silver Bullet the star of Knott’s. The launch is very strong and the top hat is one of those elements that still scare the shizzle out of me (which doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it). But unfortunately that’s all it does. If only they’d put in some loops, airtime hills or helices….To bad.

 

The ERT ended with my ride on Xcelerator, and we decided to get in the most coasters as possible before lunch. We started with Boomerang (pretty painful) continued to Pony Express (short and boring) and also managed to get in Ghostrider before lunch. Oh, and any of you could pass this on to GCI:

WHATEVER YOU GUYS DID TO BOULDER DASH, DO IT TO GHOSTRIDER!

Seriously, the ride was far from enjoyable and I can’t see how anybody would enjoy that ride more getting under a truck.

 

Lunch wasn’t all that special, there were no burgers, fries or hotdogs, which is a fail if you ask me. After lunch it was time to get in the other credits. Siera Sidewinder (slowest ride-ops ever, boring ride), Timberline Twister (very odd kiddie), Montezuma (boring shuttle loop) and Jaguar, which was more boring than all the rides in the park combined.

 

Now that all the credits were in, the group decided to hit Perilous Plunge, which I skipped, because the line was about 1 hour because of the horrible operations. Instead, I started walking around the park and taking photos on everything, but mostly Silver Bullet until it was time to go to Adventure City.

 

I find it hard to describe the little park. It’s really small, and everything in the park is small. The rides, the restaurant, the shops and the arcade are all very tiny. It’s like “honey I shrunk the themepark”. Anyways, there were two credits to get here. A kiddies and a mouse that was being kept together with duct tape and gum. But the best was an conversation between Hans and one of the operators:

Operator: How tall are you?

Hans: 6 feet.

Operator: Aha…ummm….When you exit the helix, keep your head down. You’ll see the beam.

 

So, after our whorish credit run, we headed back to our hotel, and then went straight to Disney! Because we made it back quite early, California’s Adventure was open and we hit up Screamin first. The coaster is really something special. While it is not build to thrill, it certainly gives you a one of a kind ride over the Boardwalk.

Tower of Terror was next. While the theming and effects might not be as good as Orlando’s, the drop sequence was actually better. After Tower we headed over to the Boardwalk and queued up for the Toy Story Mania. The wait looked long, but fortunately wasn’t. From all the great stories I had heard of the ride, I was let down by the ride. I guess I prefer shooting on ‘real-er’ targets than some 3d screen. The Men in Black at USF is still my #1 shooting ride.

 

As DCA was closing, we headed over to Disneyland and did Pirates of the Caribbean. The ride is the same as the other two, but Paris has the best entrance IMO. Next up was Haunted Mansion, which I think has the best entrance over Paris and Orlando. The last ride of the day was Big Thunder Mountain, which was also pretty much the same as the other ones (but I prefer Paris’).

 

But then the park closed and we got back to the hotel for a powernap, as we would take advantage of the Extra Morning Hour.

If Robb would've included the Sound effect plugin, this photo would do something like: Kaaassploooggoosssh

It seems the front row agrees.

After the helix, I guess this is my favorite part of the ride.

Somehow this reminds me of Dueling Dragons

Time for some more Silver Bullet

I enjoyed looking at the building more than the actual ride.

Yow Giirl, What's going dooown in tha hooood of youuurzzz. Izzle.

Use that entrance, and we will cure your paralysis.

The way Silver Bullet was placed, made it photograph-able from nearly any angle.

Oh well, at least the station looks nice

the best Firewood in the west

Pony Express. Nothing about this ride was good. Knott's should've gotten themselves the Vekoma type.

There's pain on the horizon

In-Need-Of-A-Paint-Job-The-Ride

While Robbie and Natalie look decent, it seems that Ben, Hans and Jenn are in deep thought.

As you can see, Xcelerator *could* do the Kessel Run in less than 8 parsec.

Guests were required to wear cloaking devices on Silver Bullet. (Sorry, I had to make that joke)

But no Disney just yet, first up is Knotts

I also wouldn't mind having breakfast with the Disney Resort across the street

Good morning Tower! Seriously, I wouldn't mind waking up with Tower right across the street.

Part II

Goodnight Walt, see you tomorrowmorning!

And a minetrain

Hmmm...Apartly my camera dediced not to pictures of Pirates and Mansion, so here's Thunder Mountain!

Where you can do fun stuff

...to Paradise Pier!

... and follow Disco-Pirate-Icebat ...

Time to leave Hollywood...

Uugh..So very typical of Disney. They spend billions on DCA, but fixing some lights on a sign...nooo.

Trivia: The most logical caption of this photo is the name of a vin diesel movie. Do you know which one?

Forget the Carousel, I'm staying here. Much more class, service and a lot more of negative G's

"....seriously, I'm telling ya, it was only 'this' big..."

Spot the TPR-member(s)

pfff. whores

Next park: Adventure City

Artsy superzoom photo

Ok, that's enough, back to Silver Bullet.

More Plunge

Xcelerator

Oh my gosh, is that really what I look like without my glasses on?! My eyes are so TINY! That's so weird...

 

Anyway, I love your night shots of Disney. They're beautiful! Great TR!

Loving the photos, man! I miss Disney...

I have to point out a few things as a Disney fanboy...

 

-Pirates of the Caribbean is NOT the same as the other two, it is about 8 minutes longer than the WDW version.

 

-The lights out on ToT are meant as theming, don't know if you were being sarcastic or not, but there you are.

 

 

Great PTR, though. Excellent shots!

^Well, to me it looked the same. It had all the scenes the others had, the burning village, the skeleton pirate and stuff.

 

As for the ToT letters, that was a joke.

But the best was an conversation between Hans and one of the operators:

Operator: How tall are you?

Hans: 6 feet.

Operator: Aha…ummm….When you exit the helix, keep your head down. You’ll see the beam.

 

That was the best "never in America" experience I've ever had in the US.

 

 

----Hans

Bas does TPR West Coast Tour 2009

Day 9

Disney Resort

 

The last two days of the trip were at the Disney Resort. The hotel was very close to the parks, basically, if you would trip over a bum sleeping in front of the hotel lobby, you would fall into the park. Because of the two nights we already went to Disney, there were very little rides left to ride. A welcome addition to that was the Extra-Morning-Hour, which provided us (and some other people, mostly from the Disney hotels) to get into Disneyland an hour before park opening.

 

We first rode both sides of Matterhorn, as they usually got pretty long lines during the day. The rest of the morning, we did random rides at Disneyland. Because everybody got the credits and favorite rides in at Disneyland, there was no pressure and actually quite relaxing, if it weren’t for the strollers.

 

At some point in the afternoon, we skipped to California’s Adventure and rode Mulholland Madness, the last credit at DCA. It was a standard and weak mouse coaster, with theming that makes you think that the imagineers took a week off while the ride was designed.

 

After the ride it was time for the group dinner at Tortilla Joe’s in Downtown Disney. The dinner sucked to me. First of all, I didn’t like the food, but that’s just who I am, a fastfood junk. But the service was really slow and if there was food I liked, there was way too little for everybody.

 

After dinner and riding even more random stuff in DCA, it eventually closed and we hopped back to Disneyland, where we did even more rides. As closing act for today, I lined up for Space Mountain, and after queuing and being line-jumped for half an hour, I got credit #200 in! Space Mountain was an awesome ride, I think I prefer it over the Orlando version, and Paris’s Mountain is not worth to mention.

Which concludes another day...one more to go...

I'm sorry, I really am.

There is it, awaiting me, credit #200

AAahh..where did all these people come from and why do they want to exit all at the same time!?

Behind the layers of artistic freedom, it is actually a ferris wheel

Because he had never ridden a swing-car-ferris-wheel, John had all the reason to be terrified. Or so he says.

I can't believe they still haven't fixed those letters. the O and W didn't for our entire stay.

Ah...now that's why they call it Sunset Blvd.

They should name it "The Best Drop Sequence Hotel"

Tower..again? I believe there hasn't been a single day we didn't ride it.

Cool Bear Rock

The Indiana Jones ride. Seriously I love this ride. And not just because it has fire.

Jungle Cruise, where dark humour spits you in the face!

A ship sailing with it's sail up? How magical can you get?

Splash Mountain: Now with guests blocking the foreground!

'cool' Mansion

We also visited Jeff Johnson's family

How cute

Another rip-off of my avatar

Hi C3PO!

...we head over to Matterhorn!

And while the Castle anxiously awaits our arrival...

There was nobody here! I love Extra Magic/Morning Hours

Awesome TR from my favorite park in the world. This is an awesome report, and I am looking forward to the last installments.

Bas does TPR West Coast Tour 2009

Day 10

Disney Resort

 

“So there it was, the final day of the trip…sigh…I guess it’s true when they say all super-cool-awesome things come to an end”

 

And this day was hell. That is, it was hell if you had to do Disney in one day. It was crowded as hell. Because it was a Sunday, there were more crowds than the rest of the week, and the premiere for the new Fantasmic show lured a lot of Disney-gee … eh, Disney-enthusiasts out to the park.

 

Thankfully, we already did 2 evenings and a full day worth of Disney. Every ride that we wanted ride, we had ridden it. So what did we do the entire day? Well, we did a picture scavenger hunt. Basically, you get a list of things (or cryptic descriptions of things) you need to take a photo of.

 

There were easy things, such as Japanese tour guides, and hard things that would even puzzle the dedicated Disney-gee … enthusiast. For some reason, two teams got their hands on former Disney-employees and then came in 1st and 2nd naturally, and since we got 3rd price, that makes us Winner of the non-cheating teams!

 

During the day, we didn’t ride a lot of stuff, we were simply outnumbered by the crowds. Eventually it was time for dinner. I forgot the name of the place, but I remember I didn’t like the food. What I do know is that for some reason, I was the first person to ever fill out an Elissa Bingo Card, but more on that later.

 

During Fantasmic, the rest of the park cleared out and we managed to do some stuff before the park closed and we all went to bed for the last time…

Now this doesn't look like much, but you'll know what I'm talking about if you check the full resolution: http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3350/disneysquare2.jpg

Goodbye Mansion!

And beer

Farewell Dinner

Ok, I rest my case

It's a small world, strollers and GUESTS! Can this picture get any worse?

LOL

....IT WAS! Trust me on that one

And while it doesn't look so crowded...

Ever wondered how the inside of club 33 looked like?

Hello tiny castle!

Hello trainstation!

I love these benches, they are soo subtle