The big one. Furie's trip with ECG across the East Coast!

[furie]

So, I'm finally back and it's time to get a report out.

I'm going to do this a little bit differently. It's going to be a kind of informal report thing I think. I'm going to have this introduction, with some ideas, then separate posts for each day of the trip. I'm probably going to do some kind of conclusion at the end of it all - a kind of summary.

Okay then
Introduction

First up, I have to say a huge thanks to Jerry (ECG) and his family for putting up with Minor_Furie and myself for the time there. It’s been fantastic and their help and company brilliant!

The basic layout of the trip was something like the following:
Day 1 – Arrival and rest. Maybe see a bit of New York.
Day 2 – Six Flags New England and Lake Compounce
Day 3 – Dorney Park, Knoebels and then an hour or so at Hershey Park
Day 4 – Hershey Park
Day 5 - Six Flags Great Adventure
Day 6 – Day in New York
Day 7 – Kings Dominion
Day 8 – Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Day 9 – Some time in New York and then home.

Pretty full schedule, with changes obviously being made depending on weather and the like. Lots of good stuff to look forwards to and a pretty huge amount of miles to cover.

Expectations
I had a few ideas of what I was expecting the trip to deliver. I didn’t think too much about it, the main reason for going was to enjoy myself. All the way through, having a good time was my prime concern – not really the nitty gritty of coaster geekery. Obviously that was going to play a part, but at the end of the day, I was going to ave a great time.

A few things though I was expecting to bring back with me.
- A wider ranger of “coaster experiences”. There are a few types of coasters on the trip I’ve not been on before (for example Floorless and Intamin “airtime machines”).
- A broader depth of current coaster experiences. Chance to get to see a few more B&M Inverts, etc.
- The opportunity to ride some of the best rated coasters in the world.
- Chance to ride the “bigger and better” versions of what I’ve already been on.
- Getting an idea of the sheer size and scale of the US parks.
- Never having been to the US, just the general cultural aspect (whatever you may make of it :lol: ).
Probably a few other bits as well, but they’re the things that I was really looking at.
I was definitely expecting to come to some new conclusions and to change the way I view things, and I did (more in the conclusions) 
Potential high lights
Just a quick list of the things I was really looking forward to, should be interesting to read what my actual impressions where of these things.
- Meeting Jerry (ECG)
- Seeing “The Big Apple”
- The big two woodies on the list – Boulder Dash and El Toro
- Number one steel coaster – Bizzaro (Superman Ride of Steel) at SFNE
- Griffon
- Busch Gardens generally.
- Knoebels.
- Hershey Park – it’s full of stuff I’ve been kind of interested in for ages, but until planning this trip, didn’t realize they were all in the one park – particularly lightning racer!

Best get on with the actual reports then!

 

[Snoo]

Well.. lets get on with it then!

 

[nadroJ]

Furie can I ask a really nosy question?

How much did the trip cost in total if you worked it out per person? Only because this is basically the trip I want to do when I leave Uni just so I can get an idea.

 

[marc]

I can not wait to read this report.

 

[nadroJ]

Ditto I hope you have loads of pics for us furie!

 

[furie]

Pictures are going to be coming, but not just yet. You've had a taster on Facebook, I'll expand on it here, with more details... As I get to it...

Expect an update at least once a day

Jordan, I'll PM you

Day 1 – Arrival and rest

Should be a pretty easy day this one. We stopped a five minute drive from the airport parking (Purple Parking) – which is 15 minutes from Heathrow. Shouldn’t be a problem! We left the Travelodge at 7:00 to get us the airport with our two hour time limit in place. Then the problems started.

Minor_furie’s case/bag tore open when I zipped it up putting the toiletries bag away. Trip to find somewhere that sold an emergency sewing kit so I could get it sorted out. Took a little while, and then I had to actually sew the bag up. Still, we have lots of time.

Just outside the Purple Parking place was a Tesco, so I nipped in to grab a few bits for breakfast. Save us some cash and get something a little decent. It was 7:25, so we still have two hours, and we’re only fifteen minutes away from Heathrow.

Tesco didn’t open for five minutes. Not a problem, we waited and got breakfast. Not massively out of time yet. About an hour and 45 mins from last check in.

Pull up to the parking place two minutes later. There’s a queue though. Somebody is having an argument with the people booking cars through into the parking place. Takes fifteen minutes just to get into the parking place and a few minutes for a bus to show up.

On the bus and off we go for our fifteen minute ride to Heathrow. There’s one minor stress I have. I booked through Virgin, and their site said Terminal 3. Continental said Terminal 4 (Continental flight). I checked Virgin again and they said all Virgin and associate flights are T3, so we got on the T3 bus. Again, not a major issue as it’s about a ten minute free trip from T3 to T4 if there’s an issue.

Parking bus makes its way through to the M4 junction. It’s queued up on the slip road. We crawl for well over an hour on the M4 passing an accident which was slowing traffic down. Still, we have about twenty minutes to the flight close. Knowing time is getting short, I explain to the driver I need to get to T3 really quickly. He shrugs and mutters something in Polish about T1, T2 and T3 and nothing he can do.

Horrible stress filled crawl across from the T1 to T2 to T3. Took over 10 minutes, and my time is running out. We get to T3 with about five minutes before flight close, just got to hope we’re at the right Terminal.

To be continued...

 

[peep]

Furie that is such a horrible cliff hanger. Really intrigued to hear about your trip as it is rather epic.

 

[A-Kid]

Believe it or not, I'm fairly excited to hear the next part

 

[Emmett]

:lol: , Heathrow Airport what a nightmare of an airport.

Glad to hear you had a great trip and I'm looking forward to seeing the updates.

 

[furie]

Continued...

We’re not at the right terminal We have five minutes to get to T4. I know it’s probably impossible, but we run across anyway. We’re in luck with the lifts, trains and everything. No waiting for anything, but it’s not enough, we’re about 10 or 15 minutes too late for final check in (I don’t know exactly, I was knackered from the run and too stressed).

So, flight is missed – not the best start to a dream trip away.

Next flight is at 12:00, so we have an hour and a half to get sorted for that before it’s closed, the Continental people have got us both seats so we should be fine, we’ll just be an hour and a half late.

Massive queue now, and we don’t get to the front until about 15 minutes before the flight closes. There’s a problem and the computer won’t let us book in - something is locked. The supervisor is called, but she’s too busy dealing with a delayed flight to Dallas (hey, it’s delayed 11 hours, you have plenty of time to deal with people, surely?). By the time she comes over, she just says “too late”. Grrrrrrr… Okay, we missed the first one due to my fault and some bad luck, but we were an hour and a half early for this flight!

We end up on standby then for the rest of the flights that day, but none come through for us. At 6:00, the guy dealing with that flight was a star (so I thought at the time anyway, more later :roll: ). He got us on standby for the 10:30 the next day (24 hours after we should have flown), and confirmed for the 12:00 flight if we couldn’t make standby.

Jerry was great, and did a quick bit of re-jigging of the itinerary. It just meant we would have to lose our dedicated day in New York (which was a bit of a blow, but not the end of the world (certainly wouldn’t have been for Ben )).

The rest of the night was spent at the Heathrow Ibis hotel (when we eventually got to it), and up early the next day for the fun game of sitting and waiting for standby confirmation.

Coming soon, Day two and some photos!

 

[Ben]

Jerry was great, and did a quick bit of re-jigging of the itinerary. It just meant we would have to lose our dedicated day in New York (which was a bit of a blow, but not the end of the world (certainly wouldn’t have been for Ben )).

Wow, that actually is the biggest silver lining to any story I've heard! :wink:

Though that airport faff sounds awful!

 

[marc]

See there is a reason I always get to the airport 3 hours before check in Sorry Furie.

Heathrow is **** one crash on the M25 or M40 and you have had it, we saw the jams about a week before we flew from there so in the end I cancelled the parking and stayed in a hotel. In total it worked out about £20 more but as you found out saves the stress.

 

[furie]

See there is a reason I always get to the airport 3 hours before check in Sorry Furie.

Yeah, I usually do too. I'd had a really bad night though and had to take an extra dose of antihistamine. So I wasn't really with it the next day at all, and didn't have as tight an eye on the time as I should have done. It was just a mix of me not being 100% with it, and a bunch of bad luck setting us further and further back. If the bag hadn't broke, or the guy hadn't argued, or the bus had gone straight to T3 - we'd have made it with a few minutes to spare (not good of course, but we'd have still made it).

Lesson learned though

 

[furie]

Day 2 – Six Flags New England and Lake Compounce – Erm, Flight and rest day?

Okay, it didn’t pan out like that at all - Day 2 was a write off really park wise, well, almost...

We got to the airport in plenty of time, and got checked in for the 10:30 standby flight. Then it was a three hour sit around (had a great breakfast though) waiting to see if we’d be allowed on – or have to wait until 12:00 (meaning losing a lot of time in NYC).

Fortunately, we made the 10:30 flight, and arrived in Newark airport to a happy Jerry at about 2:00 p.m. New York time.

Quick trip to Jerry’s to meet the family and drop off our bags, then a trip through New York to see the sites, and take in our first coaster of the trip.

Coney Island

The photos start now

After a fairly long journey through the city (via some landmarks, including Ground Zero), we parked up opposite what was Astroland on Coney Island.

I was actually quite surprised that as much was open as there was. I was under the impression it was pretty much all dead apart from the Cyclone until construction started. While Astroland was pretty much deserted, a few temporary rides were in situ. Jerry said a lot of the side shows and other stalls had gone now, but there was still a bit of a carnie kind of vibe there. I love all the freak shows and everything, it’s something really interesting, even though every exhibit seemed to be “see the two headed (insert animal here)”.

Anyway, Cyclone. I’ve heard mixed reviews of this, but it’s a classic so had to be ridden.

We rode front row first go and it was pretty much what I expected – a fast old woodie. Fun enough and a little bit of a bashing from it, but all in all, it’s good enough. A solid kind of 7 rating really.

It’s only $5 to re-ride

Why not? This time, we’ll take the back eh Minor_Furie?

Don’t look so perplexed!

Words can’t really begin to describe the pain to be honest. Totally brutal ride at the back of the train. Minor_furie got the seat rammed into his spine causing him major pain, and I ended up with a large bruise on my upper right arm. There is some fun in a harsh ride, but this was far too much. Back row ride scores maybe a 3. I couldn’t even tell you where there were corners or airtime or anything as my world was just hurt!

It looks all innocent here!

We left for a sit down and licking of wounds and a Nathan’s world famous hot dog – yum . Then a walk around the rest of the attractions and along the beach. We deliberately avoided the kiddie coaster. Such a failure of whoring!

We didn’t ride the rubbish thing!

Jerry dragged me onto Wonder Wheel. I had to, as there are only a few operating in the world, but I dislike Ferris Wheels at the best of times! This one has the carriages on tracks that swing about – my idea of a nightmare.

Jerry looks happy about my discomfort – The Kid does his impression of my face every time the carriages moved! :lol:

From up there we spotted a new coaster! Hurray for new coasters! Hurray for not riding them!

Views from the Wonder Wheel were pretty good (when I had my eyes open – Marc, you’d hate it too ). We got to see this floating gin palace making its way up the river.

View from the front of the Wonder Wheel here. Just as it’s about to roll down and swing out over thin air (shudder)

That’s enough for the moment I think, there’s a lot of things to get through here, and it’ll take me forever if I try to keep doing everything in single stints.

Next – New York drive through.

 

[Ben]

I really liked the Wonder Wheel, although I'm terrified of heights and "normal" Ferris Wheels, for some reason, that one didn't bother me at all!

And Jake and I found the EXACT opposite of what you did with Cyclone! We rode it in the front the first time, and suffered internal bruising and bleeding, but, then gave it a re-ride at the back and it was fast, frantic, awesome and totally and utterly bearable. How odd!

But, Coney Island is a very "interesting" place. Glad you "appreciated" it!

 

[Slayed]

^^These reports are going to take forever anyway, but that's fine, they're great!

That last pic gave me vertigo though :?.

 

[furie]

Wonder Wheel was the scariest moment of the entire time. I had a few "OMFG" moments too, but Wonder Wheel was just silent terror!

New York, New York

A previously mentioned, we’d already seen a few of the sites of New York on the way to Coney Island. Now we had an opportunity to see a bit more of downtown Manhattan. Essentially, Jerry was going to drive us through all the famous places, point stuff out, etc. In the middle, a coffee break at his office which overlooked the Empire State building and had great views of Manhattan.

From the road:

A bit of a drive later and we enter the main part of the city over the famous Brooklyn Bridge

Past the Town Hall or courts or somewhere pretty grand.

Typical kind of New York cliché scene. Cop car flashing its way through China town

I think this was entering The Village – the hip place to be. Taylor’s favourite uncle soliciting himself on the street

Can anyone spot the subtle advert for a new film due out this summer?

From Jerry’s office then we had a good view around. From the one side you have the Olympic stadium for the New York 2012 Olympics.

Oh? It’s still a train yard. Ah, that’s because London got the 2012 Olympics and they didn’t build the stadium. Shucks Jerry, that would have been a great place to watch the events for free

Views across from the other side. First up with the Empire State.

And then across downtown with Trump Tower and stuff (I think).

Over in the distance you can just about make out Wall street through the murk.

Sophistry! LOL! (Look at my profile )

And a well creamed Stone Cold (that’s an image should give you nightmares)!

Through to Time Square then, and an obligatory shot of a McDonalds. We didn’t eat in one at all while in the States – hurray for us!

I loved the occasional inclusion of a bit of something gothic in the city amongst the modern lights and sky scrapers!

Then back down Broadway and through Time square once more. There was an idiot dancing on top of a limo here, blocking the traffic. The next day the city passed a law banning all traffic that way – so we were one of the last people to be allowed to do this drive and take pictures from a car.

The lights are calling.

Closer…

And that’s it for NYC for now. Tomorrow is the trip to SFNE and Lake Compounce delayed from today. That means Number 1 steel coaster and Number 4 wooden. I’m expecting big things from both – can they deliver? You’ll have to wait and see…

 

[The Grape Wizard]

Nice report furie, but it gives me shivers reminding me of New york in april, ahh i hate that place.

 

[furie]

I liked the diversity of New York and the sheer scale of it. It's a pity that we didn't really get a chance to set foot in the place until the last day. I'd have loved to have spent some time just sampling a small bit of the culture - I've got the rest of my life for that though

 

[Ben]

Nice report furie, but it gives me shivers reminding me of New york in april, ahh i hate that place.

<3

As the French would say, une dumpé grande.