Behemoth/East Coast TPR Trips PTR

[Ben]

I thought Ka was a much smoother and nicer ride then Stealth... Stealth breaks my back going into the Top Hat, Ka didn't. And really, if you were silly enough to ride just in the back after all you EVER hear about Ka is "don't ride in the back" - well, that's your fault then. I had an amazing, top ten worthy ride on it - that's all the counts to me.

So, whatever. And I didn't notice any off this three-launch stuff - I guess I was just a bit pre-occupied with launching to nearly 130mph to have time to count...

Ka > > > Stealth. Any day.

BUT, I also bet Dragster is better. The lap bars would help no end.

And Tay, you mis-understand me a bit on Toro - it's a GREAT ride. It's just not fantastic, and Nitro's better. Nitro <3.

 

[MouseAT]

if you were silly enough to ride just in the back after all you EVER hear about Ka is "don't ride in the back" - well, that's your fault then.

See, that's the thing. I didn't ride near the back. I was in the middle the first time, and in the second row on the second attempt. It still rattled around way too much towards the end of the launch.

Besides, the launch was decidedly meh. It was fast, yes, but it seemed to be lacking in power. Maybe I'm just too used to Rita - the launch on that is just insanely forceful.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

And really, if you were silly enough to ride just in the back after all you EVER hear about Ka is "don't ride in the back" - well, that's your fault then. I had an amazing, top ten worthy ride on it - that's all the counts to me.

So, whatever. And I didn't notice any off this three-launch stuff - I guess I was just a bit pre-occupied with launching to nearly 130mph to have time to count...

Amen to Ben. I always think that about people when they say that Kingda Ka is rough. If you really want the most out of your experience and you're not going to be going back anytime in the near future, sit in the front or the second seat to the front, and then there won't be a problem with roughness. To me it was a tiny, almost un-noticeable amount rougher than Dragster, but the extra acceleration and speed made up for that.

And Tay, you mis-understand me a bit on Toro - it's a GREAT ride. It's just not fantastic, and Nitro's better. Nitro <3.

Oh okay, good.

 

[Ben]

OK, Six Flags America! To say the very least, it sucked. But, I’ll get into that as we go along.

This is the entrance - not too bad yet

OK, so we reached the first ride, and for the life of me, I’m not sure who sponsors it? Anyone who knows? It’s very discreet.

Batwing! I liked it. Nothing to really say…

And my semi-decent attempt at capturing an on-ride esque photo.

I see you Scott, trying to get in the photo, and everyone else is clearly thrilled by a new Vekoma

This is about the part where the seats go *BANG* and hurt as they lean back

Ew.

And then it’s quite a trial to get strapped in… still a bit comfier then the silly B&M Flyers

Damn, huge wait

See, terrriblllle queue

And as if to prove a point…

I think these guys may have enjoyed it

I could stoop and make yet another Rudolph joke, but I won’t stoop to that level.

These guys look a little worried

Yay, layout. It was crap, however. Lucky we actually made it round…

I haven’t got a photo of it that really explains it, but this is the “Fast Pass entrance” for Blizzard Falls, but which really just emptied out onto a random path further up. OK. Fail one for SFA

I did not want to spin.

It makes me sad that you don’t get wet though

L.O.L.

Once again, who the heck would wait in THAT?

Joker’s is like, the only ride I took photos of. However, I’ll take this to say just how much Superman here SUCKED. The difference between that and Darien Lake’s was amazing. Garbage can and rolling and hill are words that come to mind.

Yes. It’s funny how bad this ride really was.

If you can spot what I love about this photo, you win

Two things. Yes Luke, this is to fill an embarrassing photo quota. And the background scares me…

Typhon Sea Costar was shut. And reminded so.

Wild One! I’d heard good things. It sucked!

Awww… I just wanted to pet it

And boo, the only ride in the park with a queue DOESN’T take Flash Pass

Hehe, seven-year-old humour is fun

This was good - a picnic area built IN the splash zone for the splash-down. Placement fail on the part of SFA

At least they had characters

And running out of the place, you actually pass a nice entrance. Don’t be deceived

And that’s all the photos for SFA. Here’s what I didn’t photograph- Mind Eraser, sucked. Roar, really, really sucked. That’s it, I think.

Haha, and then that night was Hooters! So glad we left early. Hahaha, WAL MART… hehe

What’s up next… Oooooo! Busch! Yay! FANTASTIC. Love that place. So, that’ll be up next.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Aw, Six Flags America has such a bad reputation that I am beginning to feel sorry for it, but really I'm sure I would enjoy it if I went, seeing as I enjoy like, anything. And I'm glad you liked Batwing Ben, because I think those are good rides but aren't often talked about.

Marvin the Martian seems to be having a gender crisis with his attire though..

 

[ECG]

Looks like Marvin is happy to see you Ben. And I'm glad somebody agrees with me about Ride of Steel at DL being so much better than SRoS at SFA. Although they're alike, there's no comparison. It's a shame that you don't feel that SRoS at SFNE is the best Superman however - there you are mistaken, young man.

 

[Snoo]

Taylor, don't you ever say you feel sorry for SFA.. or I will slap you.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

^ Go for it .

I do though, I mean, it's an amusement park and to me any amusement park is fun, whether it's a crappy fair, or Cedar Point. Though I haven't been there myself, I just think that enthusiasts go there expecting crap, and are already sort of brainwashed that it'll be junky, so therefore they think with the majority.

 

[Snoo]

Kind of like you and most rollercoasters??

Taylor.. the park is crap.. total crap.. worse then crap.. like fingering your butthole crap. The fact that Ben and company hated it, especially after being in the UK with the multitude of crap over there, says something.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

^ So you're not a fan of butthole fingering, eh? I will keep that in mind.

And yeah, I do enjoy like, every park and coaster I go to, minus the odd few, like Wild Beast.

 

[Ben]

OK, Busch Gardens Europe! This was easily my favourite park on the trip, and one of my favourite parks in the World. Everything about it was just fantastic - the coaster selection, the setting, the theming, the landscaping, the operations… everything! To say the worst coaster there was Big Bad Wolf just goes to show how totally kick ass the coaster selection there was! Throw in some really good water rides and the insane DarKastle, and you’ve got a park I can’t say enough about how awesome it is!

Now, for whatever reason I took literally no photos of people this day! So it’ll be the geekiest update I’ve done so far! But, oh well, lets all engage our inner-geek and get excited by ride photos!

The first thing we did was Griffon. I don’t have a photo of it for right now, so lets skip to Alpengeist! We rode it in the second from front and back during ERT, and I thought it was rubbish! It was slow, forceless and dull!

However… we gave it another re-ride later on, and I began to like it some more. Then, even later on we re-rode it at the front, and I loved it! So, it sits as my third favourite Invert beneath Talon and Montu now.

I think it might just be my 7-year-old season of humour again, but does no-one else see the funny side of a guy with a load of white stuff in his eye, blinding him?

Then we headed over to the GREAT DarKastle tour, which my photos all sucked of cause the “new fantastic” mode I discovered on my camera turned out to not be all that… Still, the ride made up for my camera sucking!

Anyone else see the “And things are going to… HEAT UP!” fireplace and just want to put NOM NOM on the screen?

This stuff just looks a little silly with the lights on, but off… yay!

I personally thought that while it wasn’t *quite* up to Spiderman in sort of “technical” terms, in terms of fun, it was right up there. So, we rode it three times. The same amount of times as there are faces here… spooky

Geeky question… but do the Spiderman cars not have a third row? I can’t find any pictures to confirm my suspicion…

And scary blurry tree faces tell us to enjoy the rest of our day here at Busch Gardens

I see you Arrow in the distance, but you’ll just have to be patient

Same goes to you Mr Highlight of the ride

These last two views were courtesy of what we came to dub “Patriotism Bridge”, which didn’t in any way, shape or form stand-out like a sore thumb, all of Europe is filled with bridges *just like this*.

Yay, time for Apollo’s Chariot - which to follow the theme of B&M Hypers on the trip, I loved. Not as much as Behemoth, but more then Nitro. And a better back seat ride then front, which was something the others didn’t share.

This is the best photo of Griffon I got, so I’ll use it as my chance to say it wasn’t as good as Sheikra, but I still really liked it, and the Floorless trains don’t impress-a me much

And Loch Ness was AWESOME! What was even better was the way it was being run, so fast the queue never stopped!

Here’s the second Immelman on Griffon… Something I didn’t like was how the first half and the second half were the same.

The loops on LNM were very cool, how one is at the start of the ride and the other the end - great design idea

Bad design idea was the way the whole train slammed to one side at both peaks of the Cobra Roll. Not fun.

I can’t possibly think of anything to say about a Turtle. I feel the need to express some sort of positive attitude to them, but how, I just could not say

And more LNM. Interesting fact - this is exactly how the Scottish version does not look

And then the photos randomly jump back over to DarKastle

Which was broken… despite the fact people are getting in the queue. Never mind, we came back like an hour later and skipped ahead of them all with Quick Queue. Yay-age!

While I thought this part of BBW was “cute”, Vortex had really spoilt me. Still, a LOT better then that… thing we have down in Surrey

And I did think this little drop before it all was a lot of fun

And the awesome Festhaus! This was actually taken while waiting for lunch, but we went back later in the day, and I got to dance on stage with a real live woman-pretending-to-be-German-and-kind-of-failing! That was awesome, and she so totally wanted me.

And that was the part where I put my stuff in a locker to ride BBW, left it there to do the water rides and didn’t retrieve it until the end of night ERT! So, no more photos for you.

But, as I’ve not said enough - Busch Gardens Europe rocked my socks. I was a little worried that it wouldn’t be as good as people say since I found Africa to be a disappointment without much of a theme and poor operations when I went in 06, but this place blew it so far out of the water it’s not even funny.

Next up will be a combination of Kings Dominion/Morey’s/Clementon cause I took 8/6/0 photos respectfully!

 

[Mike]

The fact that Ben and company hated it, especially after being in the UK with the multitude of crap over there, says something.

SFA really wasn't that bad, especially when you compare it to places like Camelot, Kings Dominion, Thorpe Park, Drayton Manor, Great Yarmouth...etc...etc

 

[Ben]

OK, so Kings Dominion to start the update (… and I just realised I keep putting “OK” at the start of every update… how annoying), a park I didn’t really like. It felt a lot like Canada’s Wonderland, but… worse. The park just lacked any sort of atmosphere and just felt like some asphalt with some coasters around it. Most of which blew! What I don’t have photos of is Dominator, which I thought was great! The drop is awesome, and then loved the ride. A favourite Floorless for me… until we got back to Great Adventure at least!

Other then that, nothing really stood out. Volcano was a lot of fun, but after the sidewinder, pretty lack-lustre. Flight of Fear was cool and better then JJ, but pretty rough. The rest of the park was just lame. Really.

This is Josh and Luke waiting for Hurter. It lived up to the name. However, this was after Grizzly, which wasn’t too bad!

The day guest starred Robbie from the add-on, yay! Who we were all very happy to see again!

See. Obviously ecstatic.

Volcano! I liked. But not too much. The launch was funny the second time, mid-conversation with Jenn “blah blah… aghhhh… hahaha”… at least I think it was when I rode with Jenn… whoever, fun!

Yay, queue! And we see you Jenn!

OK, now we really see you…

Robbie’s not quite sure what to make of that…

And with a goodbye from Volcano, that’s it for KD!

OK, fast-forward to Morey’s a park I LOVED! It was just so much fun! From the funniest wait for an SLC ever with Jenn, to peanut butter milkshakes (not as nice as the one at Lakemont though Robbie!) just before riding this…

Which was on a horrid cycle and almost killed me! Suffice to say, there’s a reason why this photo…

Did not include me! And the heat that day was killing me! I’d have killed for a Log Flume… Not bitter… And the Dark Rides I forgot to mention! Hahaha, with the random Chinese woman who went “boo” then quickly resumed doing her nails.

And that’s all I took at Morey’s, other then one more to finish the quota of silly Luke photos for the update… OMG, looking at it, those are totally *Spirit Fingers*! Josh’s amusement level just went down like a Dive Machine (I needed more geek in here somewhere)…

I’m not sure I can really describe how awesome of a place Morey’s was - just go yourself. But don’t ride Great White in a wheel seat, and certainly don’t ride it in a wheel seat “to be nice” - you never know, you may have to ride it there repeatedly… hehe!

Next up, not Clementon, cause I took no photos! It sucked. Basically. Hell-Puma-Tsunami-Cat-2 sucked. A lot. The trim on the first drop was the funniest trim, ever. The Log Flume was cool up until the point I got a mouthful of water. I can’t remember what the kid on the Inverter said - but it was funny! And whatever the op said was funnier! “I don’t get paid enough to care”… or whatever it was, lol! And then we did the scary ghetto Matterhorn which did something I laughed at… but what, I have no idea! And the scary balloon ride! OMG! Josh and I dragged Luke on that, and it ended in tears - for me. Those two bastards ended up spinning it so much I got very, very ill and could well have passed out/puked/both. I didn’t… just. Still, even til the hotel I was not well and shivering like I had the chills all the bus journey back - thanks guys…. Lol…ah well… And then the carousel, aww…

I think that’s it… Sorry for photo-less-ness, but I didn’t want my camera there. CBA.

Next up - Hershey Park! One of my personal favourites!

 

[Ben]

Wow, cause this didn't take me ages or anything, lol! My apologises! But, in fairness, I've been moving and all that crap!

OK, Hershey Park! I loved this park to say the very least - the theming isn’t amazing, or really existent, but the atmosphere and general prettiness of the park was superb. Lots of flowers, trees, shrubberies (Boulder Dash ERT flash-back) and… stuff. The coaster selection and water rides were then also some of the best on the trip - though for shame it is that the Rapids have now gone, they were totally amazing!

OK, so we started off with ERT on Storm Runner, so here’s a photo of people in the station, yay!

And there be the Top Hat! Great little Top Hat, btw. The straight ones are a lot better when it comes to going down.

And this isn’t a good photo but it highlights how close the ride comes to the little stream, and the ducks that we obviously fed! Twice…

I’d heard this thing was neck-chop-central. Wimps telling me that. Or I’m just used to it with Rita, whatever.

Hmmm… messed-up inversions were the order of the ride

And… fast-forward most of the morning because once again, I didn’t take any photos for that period! We went to queue for the random Reese’s sports meet confectionary (always a great combination) Dark Ride, the bizarre queue signs modelled by Luke

Josh is obviously trying to work out the random plastic people placed on the wall with a pen outline of them a few inches to one side… well placed, obviously

And this was my tragic attempt of photographing the track, which went up, down, banked… everything. Basically, it was a coaster, and I say we all count it! Yay?

At some point after this, we went off to do a “Water Ride tour”, as I liked to dub it, which included the Rapids, which were SO cool! Shame they’re gone… fun wave pool will be a great replacement I’m sure… *cough*

This section of the photos features today’s special guest - “The Smudge!” Here The Smudge attacks Fahrenheit, which I thought was “fun” in ERT, but not amazing.

Luke suggested the Boomerang… so The Smudge attacked him

And while The Smudge did attempt to destroy the Boomerang, we still rode…

Josh gave me a lot of looks like this… not sure why…

Yay, by this point I’d realised my camera was being attacked, and destroyed The Smudge - victory. However, the Mine Train was shut, so my joy was short lived

This drop was INSANE in the back…

This would be a good picture for once, but the greenery just had to ruin it…

I loved how in this part of the park everything was just sort of plonked on top of each other. I did not like how SooperDooperLooper (is that even right?) only ran ONE train. Still, they ran it like pros… so good work on that. Plus, I had Twizzlers while queuing, so I wasn’t going to complain. Mmmmm… someone in the US send me some, please? I miss Twizzlers. Oh yeah, the coaster

Great Bear was fun, but the infamous ending lived up to its infamy

Fast-forward past the Water Park Tour I mentioned (OMFG Roller Soaker MAY just have been my favourite coaster in the park - it’s awesome! Apart from that brat on a water pistol whose balls I well could have ripped off. Oh, and the fact the loading was hilariously bad… other then that!), and I took a photo of Lightning Racer. Great ride. We did ride. Just not yet.

We did Chocolate World instead! Here’s the proof -

And um, eventually ended up with Kimmy in the Fahrenheit queue!

It was about a 45 minute wait, but I had a blast!

Primarily because my favourite part of Hersheypark made their appearance - the matching orange Reese’s t-shirts we got from Chocolate Factory. Josh hated us, and some people gave down-turned glances, but screw the non-Reese’s lovers.

And yay, this blurry photo is an opportunity for me to say I LOVED Fahrenheit this time round - I was pumped from the queue, it was running like mad, and we got the back… oh, and it was night! Bliss!

Hahaha, this just makes me laugh. Kimmy et une… plastic chair?

I expect I should embarrass myself too…

And finally, in what will be the penultimate East Coast update - different people! First to note - Eli, you are the tan line king... queen... ruler! OK, I think that was all I had to note actually…

So, that was Hershey. The night ERT after this was amazing on Lightning Racer - two fantastic woodies, although, being a bus betrayer, Lightning was a better ride. Taunting was what made it REALLY fun though! Especially when we got Thunder the first win of the evening! SCORE! Against those who ditched for an easy win on Lightning and ended up losing anyway… .

Next, I’ll do Dorney (all three photos - treat!) and Knoebels as one final ECT update, then a few bonus photos from NYC, and then that’s it! Booo!

 

[Screaming Coasters]

especially after being in the UK with the multitude of crap over there, says something.

So's ya face.

 

[robbalvey]

Great stuff Ben!

I agree about SFA and KD. Such a shame this time around. I have visited both parks in the past when they both were "good" (not great mind you). But yeah, Jokers Jinx was mostly a "joke" this visit, Wild One was anything but, and SROS just didn't deliver like it had in the past. *sigh*

KD was shockingly dissapointing. I've been to the park several times where there was LOADS of fun atmopshere. Had CF sucked the life out of the place?

I love Morey's, love BGE (and agree that Griffon doesn't own SheiKra in any way at all...but it is fun) and Hershey was good times.

Looking forward to more!

--Robb

 

[Goliath123]

If you can spot what I love about this photo, you win

What is it?

 

[Mike]

Fat security person eating?

Some more awesome photos Ben from Hershey.
I'm so annoyed that I didn't do the Chocolate factory thing.
Serves me right for going around with Snoo/UC/Jake/ECG and other random people all day.

 

[Goliath123]

Only Ben knows

 

[Snoo]

Serves me right for going around with Snoo/UC/Jake/ECG and other random people all day.

Yes.. what a horrible exchange. Chocolate World vs People you probably won't see for several years at least.