UK Photo TR: live2tell75 (the other Eric Johnson)

What an amazing trip! Thanks to Robb and Elissa for organizing a coaster/theme park dream vacation! Everything from the ERT, extra perks, surprises, and parks were fantastic! You two out did yourselves, thank you so much! I am so glad I was able to meet so many new awesome people. I love my back of the bus peeps - holla! You guys all rock! Here are my trip pics: London, at Chessington, Coney Beach, Oakwood, Alton Towers, Drayton Manor, Pleasureland Southport, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Lightwater Valley, Flamingo Land, Pleasurewood Hills, Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, Joyland and Thorpe Park. There all here! Hope you enjoy.

--Eric J

The Beefeater or guide told of the many famous executions that took place here.

So much history took place here.

It was a small village.

My favorite part of London was the Tower Of London. I could of spent many hours there.

My first English breakfast.

Couldn't come to London and not ride and take a picture of a double decker bus!

The National Gallery in Trafalgar Sqare was amazing and imense!

The London Eye did give spectacular view of The City Of London and Westminster.

Being a theme park freak, I couldn't resist riding the big wheel!

The London Eye on the Thames River.

Big Ben

The House of Parliment and Big Ben.

The bathroom was super small! The shower blended into the rest of the bathroom which was the size of a closet!

What I expected, a pretty small room.

Here's my crib for 2 nights: The Carlton Hotel.

Belgrave Road, near Victoria Station, where my hotel was.

My UK adventure begins!

More Pics:

Tower Bridge had amazing views of the Thames River.

The Tower Bridge was huge!

The White Tower.

The Tower Cathedrial was gorgeous.

One of the Kinghts in Armor, was very cool, as was the weapons room.

Climbed many winding stairs to the different towers.

A Royal guard at the Tower.

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The weather was gorgeous and hot, but after the museum there was a breeze so I joined the locals and stretched out at one of the local squares/parks and relaxed and took in my beautiful suroundings.

The Greek exhibits also rocked!

The mummies were very cool.

The Egyptian galleries were awesome.

The galleries housed many interesting objects and artifacts.

The main central area is the Great Court and it is big!

One the 3rd day I hit the British Museum. What an amazing place!

After the play, I strolled around Piccadilly Circus at night. Kind of like London's version of Time's Square. Lots of lights and excitement.

Took in a play, The Mousetrap at St. Martin's Theather on my 2nd night. Fun Agatha Cristie Murder Mystery, the longest running play in London.

Next up: Day one of the Theme Park Review UK Trip at Chessington World Of Adventures. Stay tuned!

--Eric J.

Who designed the Great Court? Oh yeah, Norman Foster did! Like yeses.

Great TR so far! Keep it up if there's more.

great report.... glad you took the time to take in and enjoy some of the finer things London has to offer..... It's a great city especially when the sun is shining

I wish Ted & I would've known you before the trip. We could've had a blast hanging out in London!

Hopefully, see you in a couple of weeks!

After my 3 days in London, it was time to meet up with the crazy TPRer's for day one of our amazing UK Parks Adventure. Day one was Chessington World of Adventures. This park surprised me. It was very well themed and the landscaping was one of the best of the trip. This park featured my 100th coaster, Vampire!

I enjoyed Vampire a lot. It was very cool the way it went through the forest setting.

Some TPRer's getting ready to be bit by the Vampire.

The ride and line area were both themed very well kind of like a very pre- Dueling Dragons. The loading area featured a vampire playing a organ.

Ist coaster of the trip: Vampire, my 100th coaster!

At Chessington, we got ERT (Extra Ride Time) an hour before the park opened on Vampire and Dragon's Fury.

The TPRers desend upon Chesington.

The Dragon Falls Flume was fun.

Tomb Blaster was a pretty good shoot out ride with large sets and theming.

Tommy & James are ready for the thrilling powered Runaway Mine Train.

Rattlesnake, the first of many wild mouses on the trip. You can't tell from this photo, but this was one of the most elaborate themed wild mouses I have ever been on.

More Chessington World of Adventures Pics:

The horseshoe part of the ride was insane!

Robb is going to attack the Dragon with his video camera!

Lou is all ready to conquer the Dragon!

Boy do you spin on this baby!

Next up was ERT on one of my favorite coasters of the entire trip: Dragon's Fury.

Hi, Eric,

I recognized that guide from 2004 when my brother and I visited the Tower of London. Nice gig if you're retired from the British military, it seems.

My brain is slowly rebooting itself after this awesome trip--lemme know if you find yourself in Virginia (I'll do the same for Florida). I'm planning to post a TR focusing on dark rides, myself (especially Blackpool's) this weekend (after my brain fog clears).

Chuck

Here's a shot for your Southport collection. (I was able to recover most of my photos off my damaged memory card.)

Hey Chuck! Yeah the guide was awesome, he made the trip to The Tower so much fun. Thanks for the Haunted Inn photo. I'm glad you were able to recover some of your photos. I look forward to seeing your dark ride TR. I had a blast riding all of those cool and very wierd dark rides with you. Glad you got home ok. I know it's going to take a while for me to get back into my old routine of life. Defintley I will keep in touch, I got to get back to Busch in Virgina sometime. And if you want to go to any Florida park let me know. I'm only 30 minutes from Busch and 90 minutes from Disney, Universal and Sea World!

--Eric J

I wish Ted & I would've known you before the trip. We could've had a blast hanging out in London!

 

Hopefully, see you in a couple of weeks!

Hey Catrina! I thought the same thing. On the next trip we will have to meet up and see the sights together. I look forward to hopefully meeting up with you and Ted at Busch and/or Adventure Island next month!

--Eric J

More Chessington World Of Adventures Pics:

Ultra scary half naked wrestler man! And that concludes the day at Chesington. Next up is Coney Beach-The most beautiful seaside amusement park in the world! J/K

The Safari Skyride peoplemover gave great overviews of the park including the zoo area and....

James and me on the Safari Skyride.

Without the water fountains working, Rameses Revenge couldn't tourture it's riders.

Inside Hocus Pocus you could also find Viagra spells! WTF?

Hocus Pocus is a 3D walk through dark/funhouse attraction that was fun.

TPRer's waiting for the shortest ferris wheel ride ever!

Karen enjoying a senic ride on Toadie's Crazy Cars.

Yes, they have a land called Beanoland!

The Bubbles Works boat ride was cute except for the part when my group of 4 squeezed into the small boats and got wet!

So after Chessington, we took our 4 hour drive to Wales. And as an unexpected treat, we made a stop at Coney Beach Amusement Park. Little did we know how scary this place would be! Let's just say that Coney Beach made me realize how much I take my beautiful local Clearwater/Gulf/Tampa Bay Area beaches for granted! I was able to get in one extra coaster credit. I didn't do the other 2 kiddie coasters mainly because a few individuals broke one of them! A few of us did take in the Ghost Train, which was pretty crapy, but that was it's charm. Coney was scary!

--Eric J

And sometimes there are some that like to break the poor kiddie coasters!

Got to get those kiddie coaster credits too!

My only coaster credit at Coney Beach was Megablitz. The floors of the trains were complete with sandbags! Rough and one scary ride!

The English landscape was breathtaking and very scenic!

Watching TPR DVDs on our 4 hour trip to Wales.

More Coney Beach Pics:

And this is where I got my meal from. WTF?

My very 1st Fish and Chips meal in the UK.

As were Steve and John.

Chuck and Karen were tramatized for life from the terrifing scenes inside the Ghost Train!

Derek getting a funhouse credit!

The outside of the terrifying Ghost Train!

We will miss you Coney Beach and all of your charm!

Great pics Eric. That is cool that you got to see so much in London. Holla

Tommy

I missed the "Viagra" gag at Chessington. The Coney Beach Ghost Train was, indeed, unnerving, but at least they provided plenty of fire-exit signs (perhaps to cover holes in the walls).

Hey Eric, nice photos! That museum looks very cool, is it actually called the "British Museum"?? Looks like an ancient history museum to me!

Some funny photos in there, I loved the Viagara book.

Looking forward to more 8)

- Joe

Nice PTRs so far, Eric. It was good hanging out with you again for a bit. It seems like the trip was so long ago (and I'm still going thru the aftermath of the trip over in Finland right now!)

Glad to see a few people got to see me getting my credits on the funhouse Looking forward to the rest of the pictures!

Day 2: Oakwood

Oakwood was a fun day. First of all, it is in the middle of nowhere! But a gorgeous nowhere! We had a great day from an hour of ERT on Speed and Megaphobia, lunch and a photo walkback of Megaphobia complete with wild sheep!

I think Speed was a thumbs up for most TPRer's.

There were lots of cool elements to Speed.

It's a loop shot!

But once I got over the lift the first time, it was all fun!!

The lift was insane!

I'll be honest, the lift on Speed scared the crap out of me!

TPRer's are ready for their flight on Speed.

First up was ERT on Oakwood's new Eurofighter coaster: Speed!

Oakwood is a theme park set in the middle of the beautiful Whales countryside.

More gorgeous scenery!

More Oakwood Pics:

Here you go Elissa fanboys!

Looks like the sheep are coaster fans too!

The walkback included sheep!

I wonder what everone is taking photos of?

It was awesome how close we were to the coaster.

A highlight on the entire trip was the walkback around Megaphobia, very cool.

Train of crazy TPRers!

Megaphobia was one of my favorite coasters of the day.

More Oakwood Pics:

The vertical slide was insane!

We found a lot of us had to duck a few times so we didn't get attacked by some of the branches!

The Treetops Coaster was very scenic through the woods

After a short delay, so the ride operaters could cut a few low branches it was time to ride the Treetops Coaster.

I almost caused a backup because I was breaking so much!

I hadn't been on a bobsled ride like this since I was kid in New Hampshire.

The Bobsleigh was a lot of fun.

Jodi, James and Dave are ready for the Spooky 3D dark ride.

So am I, James and Tommy.

Paul and Ted are ready to bounce.

More Oakwood Pics:

I'm sure Ryan's homemade poncho is going to keep him dry!

Hydro was a little too wet for me, but look at that drop!

Who new Jim was so talented!

Pass the bunny beer!

We were ready for a rabbit party!

Our train conducter had to make a pit stop before our rabbit adventure. I guess the excitement of the ride made him have to go!

We are ready for our tour into the rabbit hole!

The awesome politically incorrect Brer Rabbit Ride.

So is Dave and Jim.

Tommy and Jodi are ready to fly!

Dave, Tommy, James, Jodi, Jim & me are already for the Plane Crazy ride.

Next Up: Day 3 at Alton Towers stayed tuned!

--Eric J

Great pictures so far Eric!

I keep hearing about people cutting branches back on Treetops... I take it this was AFTER I got hit in the forehead with a branch. Jay rode the train before me and warned us as he got off that there were leaves and stuff to watch out for... Leaves would have been fine, but that thing HURT!

Also, the more I hear about it and see pictures, the more annoyed I am that we missed the Megafobia walkback. Stupid Jeff and Clint leading me astray! ::