ciallkennett
Strata Poster
Well, it contains a theme park visit, so I'm keeping it here, instead of making 2 or 3 separate topics 
London Times 18th February
Martyn, Peter and I hit London to AP whore on Thursday bright and early. After driving down to Cockfosters, we got our day pass tickets and rode the tube down to Kings Cross.
Here, me and Peter attempted to find platform 9 and three quarters, though this failed, and we got stuck on the wrong platforms. Nice passer by helped us out though.
We met up with Peter's mate Ali and decided to head to Madame Tussauds, only to be greeted by a mahoosive queue. This seemed to be a bit too much for us, so we then headed straight back on the tube to The London Eye.
Ali grabbed his ticket from the ticket office, and we boarded with only a 5 min queue. It was boring as usual, but it allowed us to get a few rain-blocked images:
We got off 30 mins later and I needed to grab something to eat. So we all headed to the McDonalds, but Peter and Martyn ran off leaving me and Ali in the McDonalds queue. Then told me I was silly getting food, even though we had agreed to all stop for food.
I then had to eat my meal while walking back to the underground to head off to the Dungeons. We then saw off Ali.
We arrived to be greeted by two massive queues: one for normal ticket holders and another for "express" and "priority" ticket holders. We joined the latter queue with our annual passes. The London Bridge Experience was taking advantage of the two massive queues by persuading many people to go over there instead, insisting their queues were only 20 mins long and were out of the rain.
We queued, and queued, and queued. The only entertainment we had was of a foreigner who was pointing at a police officer, threw his coat on the floor, and was subsequently arrested in a very loud and entertaining fashion. Good times.
We also saw a member from TLBE who looked the spit of Ollie. I begun taking pictures of him, but he turned around and called me gay
After a good 1hr 45 mins, our "priority" queue had ended, and we were in.
Same old experience really, not much different to the one we had last year. However, the new Bloody Mary section was great! No spoilers, but it is very good. Extremsis was epic as usual.
We got out and headed back on the underground to Madame Tussauds once again. This time, there was no queue at all. Win! We went around and did the boring picture taking that EVERYBODY was doing.
We also got a breakdown on the taxi ride thingy, which was fun.
When we got out, it was dark and pissing with rain. We decided to head to Picadilly Circus as I had not been before. It was packed and pissing with rain, so we ventured down the road and had a play in Hamley's and the Ferrari Shop.
We then headed back on the tube and to Cockfosters, before driving back to Milton Keynes. I headed home to try and get sleep
Ciall's Birthday Bash II - Alton Towers - 19th Feb
Last year it was Adventure Island, this year it was Alton. Woke up at 6.30 to get ready to be picked up at 7.15 by Peter.
We then took the journey with all our sleeping stuff to Neal's, dropping it off and picking up him and Brad. It had snowed a lot, and was snowing on and off.
Little Rot is not used to holding 5 massive men, but she did well.
We arrived at the Towers to find the Monorail had closed, so walking was required. This we would have done anyway so we could see the old corkscrews.
We located these, and begun trying to climb over the barriers to get pictures. We then found an entrance to them...so we broke in and climbed all over them
It was fun.
We got to the entrance, met up with Ben, got in and saw that virtually everything was closed due to snow. Oh well, we went to the Towers and went to the top for pictures ^_^
We saw them clearing the snow off of Oblivion, and after many shoutings by Neal, they ignored us.
We then headed down to it to find a large queue building up outside. We joined, and soon after, Oblivion opened. A 20 min queue followed, and when we got on, I had my restraint about 10 cms away from my body, which meant epic airtime.
During the plunge down, we all sang happy birthday to me, which was nice
One ride done.
In the Oblivion shop we noticed the ultimate in geek coaster tat: OBLIVION CONDOMS!
Much cash was exchanged and almost all of us got 1 (Brad got 2), with a smile and a wink from the shop assistant, we left overjoyed.
We then put our geek glasses on and headed over to Th13teen. Not much could be seen, but we did get suspicious looks from the AT litter pickers :lol:
Hex followed, with many, many first timers who kept screaming.
Ben then got a call from Jake and Neil (and American from TPR), and we waited for them and met up with them, before heading over to Nemesis. A 45ish min queue greeted us, and we went from row.
GAY TRAIN!
With that done, and credit gained for Neil, Jake and fellows decided to do Air, while the rest of us went to Pizza Pasta for lunch.
Afterwards, we headed to Duel and got an epic ORP, in which the ORP guy said it was the best ORP he'd seen all day:
With The Gays still not off Air, we headed back over to Nemmie. Part way through the long queue, 3 what can only be described as "Scouse Chav Bastards" decided they wanted to push their way through to their Boyfriend. We didn't want this, so blocked their path. Peter was then hit by the females and threatened and shoved by the boyfriend. This was funny, but we weren't happy.
At the end of the queue, we told the ride op, who then stopped the whole of Nemesis until they left the ride, to which they were just about to board. They refused, and so after a 5 min standoff and no Nemesis, they eventually left to wait for us by the exit.
We were held back, but eventually got on. Nemmie was running great, and we got off to have to be moved aside while the now screaming swearing and threatening chavs were pushing to get to us, but were being held back.
We quickly left the area :lol:
We headed off to Sonic Spinball, but diverted to Old McDonalds Farm which I had never seen. We took a ride on the Eye-Spy ride and saw the animals.
We queued for Spinball (Which for many of us was the first time we had done the normal queue) and got on. The rides had been kept open for an extra 30 mins due to the snow in the morning, but we decided to leave it at that afterwards.
We met back up with The Gays at the main shop, and had a browse through, before taking the long walk back to the car while Ben got the train. Of course, we diverted back to the corkscrews where we rode them again
I will write up about the evening later
London Times 18th February
Martyn, Peter and I hit London to AP whore on Thursday bright and early. After driving down to Cockfosters, we got our day pass tickets and rode the tube down to Kings Cross.
Here, me and Peter attempted to find platform 9 and three quarters, though this failed, and we got stuck on the wrong platforms. Nice passer by helped us out though.
We met up with Peter's mate Ali and decided to head to Madame Tussauds, only to be greeted by a mahoosive queue. This seemed to be a bit too much for us, so we then headed straight back on the tube to The London Eye.
Ali grabbed his ticket from the ticket office, and we boarded with only a 5 min queue. It was boring as usual, but it allowed us to get a few rain-blocked images:
We got off 30 mins later and I needed to grab something to eat. So we all headed to the McDonalds, but Peter and Martyn ran off leaving me and Ali in the McDonalds queue. Then told me I was silly getting food, even though we had agreed to all stop for food.
I then had to eat my meal while walking back to the underground to head off to the Dungeons. We then saw off Ali.
We arrived to be greeted by two massive queues: one for normal ticket holders and another for "express" and "priority" ticket holders. We joined the latter queue with our annual passes. The London Bridge Experience was taking advantage of the two massive queues by persuading many people to go over there instead, insisting their queues were only 20 mins long and were out of the rain.
We queued, and queued, and queued. The only entertainment we had was of a foreigner who was pointing at a police officer, threw his coat on the floor, and was subsequently arrested in a very loud and entertaining fashion. Good times.
We also saw a member from TLBE who looked the spit of Ollie. I begun taking pictures of him, but he turned around and called me gay
After a good 1hr 45 mins, our "priority" queue had ended, and we were in.
Same old experience really, not much different to the one we had last year. However, the new Bloody Mary section was great! No spoilers, but it is very good. Extremsis was epic as usual.
We got out and headed back on the underground to Madame Tussauds once again. This time, there was no queue at all. Win! We went around and did the boring picture taking that EVERYBODY was doing.
We also got a breakdown on the taxi ride thingy, which was fun.
When we got out, it was dark and pissing with rain. We decided to head to Picadilly Circus as I had not been before. It was packed and pissing with rain, so we ventured down the road and had a play in Hamley's and the Ferrari Shop.
We then headed back on the tube and to Cockfosters, before driving back to Milton Keynes. I headed home to try and get sleep
Ciall's Birthday Bash II - Alton Towers - 19th Feb
Last year it was Adventure Island, this year it was Alton. Woke up at 6.30 to get ready to be picked up at 7.15 by Peter.
We then took the journey with all our sleeping stuff to Neal's, dropping it off and picking up him and Brad. It had snowed a lot, and was snowing on and off.
Little Rot is not used to holding 5 massive men, but she did well.
We arrived at the Towers to find the Monorail had closed, so walking was required. This we would have done anyway so we could see the old corkscrews.
We located these, and begun trying to climb over the barriers to get pictures. We then found an entrance to them...so we broke in and climbed all over them
It was fun.
We got to the entrance, met up with Ben, got in and saw that virtually everything was closed due to snow. Oh well, we went to the Towers and went to the top for pictures ^_^
We saw them clearing the snow off of Oblivion, and after many shoutings by Neal, they ignored us.
We then headed down to it to find a large queue building up outside. We joined, and soon after, Oblivion opened. A 20 min queue followed, and when we got on, I had my restraint about 10 cms away from my body, which meant epic airtime.
During the plunge down, we all sang happy birthday to me, which was nice
One ride done.
In the Oblivion shop we noticed the ultimate in geek coaster tat: OBLIVION CONDOMS!
Much cash was exchanged and almost all of us got 1 (Brad got 2
), with a smile and a wink from the shop assistant, we left overjoyed.We then put our geek glasses on and headed over to Th13teen. Not much could be seen, but we did get suspicious looks from the AT litter pickers :lol:
Hex followed, with many, many first timers who kept screaming.
Ben then got a call from Jake and Neil (and American from TPR), and we waited for them and met up with them, before heading over to Nemesis. A 45ish min queue greeted us, and we went from row.
GAY TRAIN!
With that done, and credit gained for Neil, Jake and fellows decided to do Air, while the rest of us went to Pizza Pasta for lunch.
Afterwards, we headed to Duel and got an epic ORP, in which the ORP guy said it was the best ORP he'd seen all day:
With The Gays still not off Air, we headed back over to Nemmie. Part way through the long queue, 3 what can only be described as "Scouse Chav Bastards" decided they wanted to push their way through to their Boyfriend. We didn't want this, so blocked their path. Peter was then hit by the females and threatened and shoved by the boyfriend. This was funny, but we weren't happy.
At the end of the queue, we told the ride op, who then stopped the whole of Nemesis until they left the ride, to which they were just about to board. They refused, and so after a 5 min standoff and no Nemesis, they eventually left to wait for us by the exit.
We were held back, but eventually got on. Nemmie was running great, and we got off to have to be moved aside while the now screaming swearing and threatening chavs were pushing to get to us, but were being held back.
We quickly left the area :lol:
We headed off to Sonic Spinball, but diverted to Old McDonalds Farm which I had never seen. We took a ride on the Eye-Spy ride and saw the animals.
We queued for Spinball (Which for many of us was the first time we had done the normal queue) and got on. The rides had been kept open for an extra 30 mins due to the snow in the morning, but we decided to leave it at that afterwards.
We met back up with The Gays at the main shop, and had a browse through, before taking the long walk back to the car while Ben got the train. Of course, we diverted back to the corkscrews where we rode them again
I will write up about the evening later
