downunder

I booked the Ultimate Tour for the 18th. I plan to spend the day at the park anyway, and go to Sea World on the Sunday, so it was worth getting VIP Gold. My read of that 15 people thing is that when they take you on the guided tour part of the package the maximum size of a single group is 15 people, I think they would have more than 15 Ultimate Tour packages available on any night. I'd love to be wrong though. I'm hoping the Ultimate Tour has lights on maze walk throughs like Behind The Screams, it wasn't clear about that. My Ultimate Ticket says meet at Stars Cafe at 4.30pm, I agree it's ordinary you need admission to the park as well to do the tour.

I'm looking into a VIP ultimate straight away, just what I want.

^I'm waiting on the options there, that may well decide if I go or not.

^^Behind the Scenes tours would be cool, I've done that at Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando and it was awesome. I'd pay plenty extra to do that.

Looks like RMC will have to use a lot more steel supports for the lift hill than planned. It appears to have been their fault, the speculation being that sparks from cutting out the old lift hill assembly set it alight. Based on that, I'd assume RMC will be liable for the extra work and materials. Should be a pretty good coaster as long as SFMM doesn't neuter it with too many trim brakes.

If the Ripper maze is anywhere near as good as Terror of London at Knott's it'll be excellent - London is one of my faves at Scary Farm. I'll be ineterested to see what the ticket options are this year, iof they have a decent fast pass type option that will be a tipping point for me.

I'd like to go, but it's difficult to find a window with sporting commitments. I'm also worried I might be a bit jaded because I do stuff like Halloween Horror Nights and Knott's Scary Farm every year (including late October this year). Doing the Gold Coast Rugby Sevens and a couple of Fright Nights would be an awesome double.

Twisted Colossus makes Magic Mountain a place that I'd actually go back to now, and Wicked Cyclone at New England, means I'll have to divide my time between between Bizarro/Ride Of Steel and Wicked on future visits. The S & S at Fiesta looks like an improvement on the Intamins like Insane and Green Lantern. Everything else is kind of meh, it will be interesting to see how legs the year-round haunt at La Wronge has, we know how much Six Flags like staffing things. Those Looping Flats are kind of lame, I'm surprised they don't make them go around a heap of times and try and claim the roller coaster inversion record.

Is it better with crowds to go to this earlier in the month, or is it just packed all the time? I've been putting off going to this for years, one of these years...

I agree it would fit well at MW, it's balanced nicely between being a full-on adult ride and an older kids ride. Looks like so much fun.

I'm in the process of doing mine. I'm doing it from scratch just so I can put some thought into, but with almost 500 steelies in my count (albeit Mitch has rationalised it a fair bit) it's a bit of work. After some sensational rides on Maverick and Millennium Force last, they moved up my list. Once I'm done, I'm confident Goudurix will be at the bottom. My top 15 steel is pretty much set (plus my fave woodie at the top): 1. Favorite Wood Coaster - Outlaw Run 2. Expedition GeForce 3. Bizarro (SF New England) 4. Maverick 5. New Texas Giant 6. Millennium Force 7. Goliath (Walibi Holland) 8. X2 9. Piraten 10. Top Thrill Dragster 11. Nemesis (Alton Towers) 12. Montu 13. iSpeed (Mirabilandia) 14. Kumba 15. Katun 16. Vortex (Canada's Wonderland)

I believe the housos Wet and Wild is at the nearby sewerage plant. It will be interesting to see how this goes. If it's successful maybe it will encourage other similar development. Just put Balder and Expedition GeForce clones in a parking lot and I'll be happy.

IV bags cool, they have sexy nurses selling them at Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando. I tried one there, but I didn't find it too alcoholic. So many people stumble around drunk in Orlando HHN (they sell alcohol on every corner just about), I saw younger people who could barely stand-up and a few up-chucks. Movie world Halloween sounds like it is getting better every year.

There's also single rider lines for some attractions, so if you're willing to split up, that can be good value for especially non-e-ticket attractions. Totally concur on Matterhorn, hit it first. For SFMM, the most painless way to get there is just book a tour and they pick you up at your hotel and take you there. Worth a visit if you haven't been before, so many coasters. A Flash Pass is worth it if there's lines and you want to get a lot of rides in. I recommend going to SFMM on a Sunday in off-season (not open weekdays generally). I'm going next week, though I'm mainly there for Halloween attractions like Knotts Scary Farm and Halloween Horror Nights. I might be able to squeeze in a visit to one of the Disney parks, but I'm not a huge fan. Decided to skip SFMM (been on everything a million times except YOLOcoaster), doing a new haunt and some bands instead the day we were thinking of going to SFMM.

I imagine rich people often rent out entire parks when the mood strikes them. I've been to Stricker's Grove on the list, It opens to the public 2 days a year. The food wasn't bad, and there's a couple of cute wood coasters. OMG as if it wasn't scary enough to go to Neverland Ranch, I see they had a Pinfari death machine.

I love how they keep taking it up a notch every year, if I ever have a year where I don't head to the US for Halloween - I'm there. Only 6 nights seems a bit of a waste considering how much work goes into the event.

This looks amazing, I've already been checking out where Branson is. To top it off they've got Powderkeg, and an old school. B & M sit down. Branson is supposed to be like Pigeon Forge, so I'm sold.

Grizzly looks great, I was just in Hong Kong less than half a day ago, but I didn't have time to check out Disneyland while on layover to at least have a look. Rode OzIris last week, a fairly solid B & M with a unique layout, though it's nowhere near Montu or Nemesis, and I'd have it behind the one Flight Deck I've been on. The theming was excellent, especially the queue. The hilarious thing about Parc Asterix is that Goudrix had a 2-3 hour line, almost everything had monster lines. Also rode Wodan, which is a pretty solid GCI, though nothing surprising.

^Thirteen was very ordinary, I rode it once and that was enough, Nemesis on the other hand... I'm really impressed with Verbolten, there's already a few POV floating around, looks like fun. With all these new B & M hypers which are at least are bigger than what they usually do, I wonder if the ride experience will be all that different from their other hypers which are smooth with floaty airtime. Skyrush really intersts me, I'm looking forward to seeing if it has the classical Intamin ejector airtime. Next month I'll get to check out Oz'Iris which looks like a good variation on the standard B & M Invert layout & Wodan, which I expect will be like most other GCI's - not that there's anything wrong with that. I've haven't been to Dreamworld since 2003, that's how much I think of their new additions. I almost went just before Christmas, but I got a freebie for MW & went there instead.

I was joking around, I think a launch would make the Weapon truly Lethal.

I don't get it, does Martin Riggs escape from Arkham Asylum? Does Murtaugh help him get out? Gosh, darn, I was hoping for enhancements to the Lethal Weapon theme, like just before the new LIM launch up the lift hill, Danny Glover goes "I'm getting too old for this sh**" on the audio. In all seriousness, they can theme it to Howard the Duck for all I care, the over the shoulder straps will eliminate all headbanging - that's good enough for me.

The more I see of Skyrush at Hershey the more impressed I am, this could be the surpise biggest hit of the new additions.

A major airtime coaster, steel or wood, something like Balder or Expedition GeForce. Probably not likely, but I'd love to see it - they're also a bit smaller than other coasters in their class (B: 118' & EGF: 173') so they might be tad more realistic.

Superman Escape for me. I have to say Jet Rescue was fantastic, finally rode it just before Christmas.

I remember that place as a little kid, the Ghost train was cool, and there was the madhouse. Those were the days. sydney used to have some dinky little amusement parks around the place. I recall this other one that was out west somewhere that had slides and a field with little houses and stuff, no idea what it was called. I also recall being just tall enough (with a lot of cheating) to ride the original big dipper, unfortunately the fire put paid clocking some serious laps.