Gold Coaster

The number of arcade games/midway games in the US theme parks I visited on my trip were ridiculous. Most of the time you would have really decent theming, even in thrill parks like Six Flags ones, but then you'd come across a glut of these 'distraction attractions'. Knott's Berry Farm felt like one of the worse ones as it seemed to have an old-fashioned feel to it which was ruined by these very commercial inclusions. Like midway versions of 3-point shootouts, the prizes of which were basketballs so the park would then be filled with obnoxious teenagers dribbling them about the place.

About time! A carousel would be brilliant however kiddie it ended up being.

EDIT: (Ok so here's a sample anyway while I sort out the rest.) TPR Midwest Trip Day 0 - Bonus Park: Coney Island August 2nd, 2007 Well, after months of counting down every passing minute until the trip, we're finally on it... ZEN COASTER REPRESENT! ... Myself, Andrew Janes (The Eh!mazing Avenger), Allison Alvarez (Moppie Mouse), her brother Chris, Jay Hill (El Toro Extreme), Nadia Begdouri (Coaster Contessa), AJ De Jager, David McCollum & Evan Darlington. Via Air Pacific (Fijian airline) I had flown into LA on July 24 and stayed at Evan's place (great hospitality, thanks Jeanette if you find yourself reading this & will phone you in the next couple of days anyway). We hit Six Flags Magic Mountain, Universal Studios and Knott's experiencing pretty minimal lines for the most part, way shorter than my expectations for a summer coaster safari. Evan then flew to the Midwest to hit Geauga Lake with some TPR peeps while I stayed with Allison and Chris. Did Disneyland and Disney California Adventure for the next 4 days & was introduced to the uber-cool Hip Hop Harry (Google it!). Wink Moppie, Chris and I then flew on the morning of the 2nd from LA to Ohio. Left at 1AM, 3 hours to Dallas then layover at Fort Worth airport then another couple of hours to Cincinnati. The very definition of 'red eye', ladies and gentlemen and none of us drinks coffee so didn't have that to fall back on. On both AA flights, I managed to finally get comfortable ... right when they announced the plane was going to start its descent. TPR supremo Elissa Alvey met us with goody bags (including our Midwest Trip shirts that we'd ordered; I have one in each colour - white/grey/black) which contained amongst other things a Son of Beast survival kit (headache pills, basically) & a cool name badge on a lanyard with a credit list on the back that we can tick as we go. Robb was at the bonus park but their new baby was there & very placid. It was nice to meet Wes who is a pretty friendly guy & weird to meet people who I had never even spoken to on the phone & had just been IM-ing for months. It was soon revealed that the bonus park was old-fashioned family fun park Coney Island with a staggering coaster count of 1 Tongue A coaster called (Pepsi) Python. A short drive later and we were there. Some of the TPR trip gang were spread out on the lawn in front of the coaster including Zen Coaster staff members Jay Hill & Andrew Janes (who kind of looks like a cross between Ron Weasley & Harry Potter Wink) who I am rooming with for the trip. I got on with Divv, a Scottish forum member who I had the pleasure of meeting after months of MSN chat, around the front. Ahead of us were Kim and another Allison, who had flown all the way from Florida. Sitting down, I had my bags stowed at the station and video camera primed in my hand... and the coaster coughed and died. The very first credit, the very first ride made by the 2nd batch picked up at the airport....and it broke. We soon however got our ride and found it actually to have quite a bit of kick to it. It was pretty fun but if you've done a fairground coaster you've done Python, basically. I also rode with Jay as well as another Australian, Jacob, who I'd met once before the trip at Warner Bros Movie World (Australia). Divv & I did a whistlestop tour of the park to take some pics and see what was around. It's basically a little fair with various flat rides, many of them kiddie, and assorted amusements like mini golf & even a water park. We soon bumped into Robb Alvey shooting video of the Python. We left soon after to get to our first hotel: Holiday Inn Hurstbourne. Dinner was at Olive Garden, a place for American-style Italian & a popular meal spot for TPR so an appropriate starting meal. There are over 100 of us so we had split up into groups to choose from the twenty restaurants near the hotel. Photos were taken, pasta was consumed in massive quantities & the ice was broken between a diverse group of 20+ people who were from places as diverse as Holland, Australia (woo!), England & more! We then headed back to our rooms for an early night before Holiday World.

I have arrived in Los Angeles and tomorrow will be hitting the first park - Six Flags Magic Mountain can't wait to hit Tatsu. I will post a few pics here but will be postingmini update threads from tomorrow onwards for the next 3 weeks on the Zen Coaster forums at http://www.zencoaster.com/connect - hitting all the SoCal parks this week then go on that TPR Midwest Tour Site will be launched when back but I won't go into details since I know you don't like people promoting their own site, Richo. As 'payment' I'll put bonus pics into this thread unique for r-c.com.au and some video clips too. so watch this space and i'll link whenever i post an update thread.

9th & 10th of August for me. So about 3.5 weeks. (visiting it as part of the Theme Park Review Midwest Trip) Thanks for a great trip report. For your sake, you better tell your girlfriend the best day was meeting her though

Thanks Paul. Guess this is a perfect opportunity for credit whores to get themselves a new item on their Dreamworld list Relocation would probably count in their eyes! Haha. Big 7, anyone!?

Wow. Amazing work. Good job!

Or tall.

He's an offensive little **** to everyone and then wonders why he is so disliked.

Grr. I did the Freezer on two seperate visits. The other was closed both times. Wanted to do the other one: how was it, those of you who were able to do it?

Yeah the leaking was disgusting, it's about time this was fixed. Looked very unprofessional. If the buzz going around is true, think Donna Summer and a very much Wet'n'Wild Orlando inspired slide & you have at least one slide that will probably bowl you over... and rip Whitewater World apart

Exactly. That's why they have those signs posted. The park has performed its duty of care through doing that as well as ride ops observing that people coming on don't have obvious health difficulties which might affect their ability to ride.

... another Disney death on the tally board. What's the bet saying she had a pre-existing heart condition she didn't know about or something like that? Sad that this happened to someone who only lived to 14... who knows what she might have achieved in her life...

Yeah, well, he better not make me bring out the rocks!

Big Richard, this week, for 2 points, I'd like to nominate James for eviction. He's just in your face annoying all the time. I haven't confronted him with this but he's DOING MY HEAD IN!

Look, if it ends up being rather short, it's still going to be a lot of fun, hey. Anyway, I don't think they'll let us and themselves down: they're going to want it to gain ground on Movie World aren't they?

You should, Richard. The movies are becoming better adaptations as the series go on but the books are always much better.

I'm sure we can expect to have some slides and other kids facilities. After all, it's NICK...!

The reason we no longer allowed people to ride tandem down those slides was that people were smashing their body parts into the other due to the speed - heads, elbows in the face etc. It was a safety issue.

Yeah. There's enough custom scenery available to replicate the Police Academy arena I'd say, if you need that. Just be sure to provide us with a download link for that otherwise it won't be visible when we load the file.

Matilda was sitting at the top of the hill behind Buccaneer Bay where the Admin/staff area is. Beheaded too Near the entry, new seating areas have been put in basically.

I said "If I had a genie"... so, clearly hypothetical and the smallness of the area doesn't come into it.

^^ That ride looks really fun... don't forget that survey, guys. In it they mentioned something akin to a water roller coaster didn't they? It would be great to be able to ride the Wet'n'Wild one like that in boardies and not have to change.

As I've always said, it's best summed up like this - Dreamworld has the quantity, Movie World has the QUALITY (and yes, I do like pretty much all the DW rides). At least with the motorcycle accelerator, it'll add a lot of appeal and hopefully be the sign of greater things to come. DW always has had a special place in my heart but it needs to lift its game.

Yeah Ian does a great job. Disney-MGM is a fantastic park. If I was in Orlando and had to choose between going there OR Magic Kingdom, it would be a pretty hard decision. While it doesn't really have the trademark rides (with the exception of Star Tours) such as Haunted Mansion etc, it captures the whole movie theme brilliantly, has fantastic shows (Fantasmic particularly) and parades, funky eateries & awesome rides anyway. I was there in February '05. I had lunch at the cafe where you have a whole bunch of kitchen/dining room type areas and it's like the 1950s from the decor to the waitresses and food. Old vintage TVs show clips like of the opening of Disneyland and B&W TV shows. It was a bit like being in Pleasantville I looked at the Sci-Fi Drive-In one and didn't have time to dine there but definitely will this time; tables done as cars, a big screen showing B-Grade clips; very cool. I also liked the vehicle parade and am looking forward to seeing the Cars replicas in August. The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular is brilliant & it would be fantastic if we had something in a similar vein at Movie World one day - that whole adventure theme. Although it was kind of annoying that they presented it as shooting a movie because there was a lot of stop-start as they explained what was going on. Kind of unavoidable I guess though because they had to set up the next set piece. The Great Movies Ride is a low thrill but very fun attraction & would be something easily implemented into MW. But yeah. I miss Rock'n'Rollercoaster & GOOD Tower of Terror Who else has been to MGM?