My weekend really started Friday afternoon with a trip to Legoland avec Ian and Peep:
http://www.coasterforce.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=31699&p=737192&hilit=atlantis#p737192
followed by a **** fabulous Suede gig at Brixton (including much abuse of phone lights with Brett acousting it up, 10 minute guitar solos and much dancing around like a mad thing <3). Peep will concur the absolute faff I had that afternoon trying to renew my driving license after stupidly letting it expire, booking coaches and then not using them, and being all manner of stressed. In the end, I got my license sorted, stayed at a friend’s house near Heathrow after the gig and got four hours sleep (interrupted by a maniac dog and a now ex-friend calling me up at half past two). When I woke up at some ungodly hour, I stood up and slid epically across a wet patch on the floor (that I hope was due to the wet washing and not the dog) and really hurt my arse. I then drove up to Stone Cold’s house, where he kindly lifted me to Alton and I tried to forget the pain in my arse. I spent a very pleasant and informative drive being taught about the tax benefits of being a live in landlord – very useful, cheers hun!
We got to Alton fairly early and went to find the shark meeting point. ‘I think it’s that fossil thing in Mutiny Bay’ I said, and off we went. Hmm…no CFers here, and that is definitely not a shark. One checking of emails later and we discover the shark has something to do with the Sunday meeting place at DM (FAIL), and trek on back to the grassy area by the lake. Here we met a few CFers and a multitude of ducks. Some had ducklings which were adorable *eeeiiigghh*.
Richard then decided to have duckling rage and threatened to stamp on them every time I cooed like a girl. Maddie presented me with some chocolate (thank you x) which I shared round with the arriving CFers and ducks. We sat in a large circle while the rest arrived, and a brave duck waddled in through a gap in the circle and sat right down in the middle; however he quickly realised this was a compromising position and legged it out again! More people arrived, including newbie James and his dad Steve. I also met Benin (who I’m sure I’ve met before but never really said hi to), and Joey’s Kyle. Hi all! :--D It was a huge turnout (+40 people?) gathered together that morning. Let the antics begin…!
Once the welcoming faff was over, furie called X-sector and we all went off to Oblivion. We walked through a gaggle of little ducklings conveniently located next to the pancake counter!
In perhaps a bad omen for the day, ‘Blivy was running empty trains, so we decided to hit up enterprise. I couldn’t find an empty carriage, so jumped in with Ian. This turned out to be a very big (or maybe that should be small) mistake as I got to know Ian a little better than I’d wanted to during the ride! By then Oblivion had opened and we sauntered over there (except AJ who sashays everywhere at the moment). During the queue, Neal, Will, Stone Cold and I put JayJay in a bin for his Maroon Five crimes against music and humanity in general. Oblivion was fantastic! I always forget how much of a punch it has. We also shouted our hatrid towards the vile new orange paint job whilst waiting in the station.
‘We love Oblivion, we hate Fanta…’
The world is AJ's mirror!
'insert joke about entering a hole here'
The group then headed down towards the Dark Forest en masse, via furie’s short-cut through the Towers. This was great because I love being nerdy and I’ve never had a good look round the Towers before. We gathered by the fountain before carrying on to Rita.
Fountain Force!!
WTF?
Run.....
I think this was when we did Toilet:The Ride and even though I wasn’t the last out, I had to suffer clapping. It was at this point that I realised just how busy the park was :twisted: as you can see from Rita’s queue:
We therefore decided to skip the Queen (we never did make it back that day) and carry on to Th92476een. The queue was long...
...but the company was grand. We ate disgusting things pretrending to be starbursts that made my mouth pucker and hob knob innuendo reached unprecedented levels as I tried and failed to prise one from Neal. I have this to say about the thir508709-085650-79n queue, it is beautiful this time of year, with millions of purple rhododendrons :--D .
Pretty <3
I ‘ve only been on Thir39479n a handful of times and was interested to see if there were any additions to the theming/improvement since my last ride. I’m pleased to say that the fake station area looked much better (I’m sure it has more figures and vines things in it now). The ride is ok, but I still had immense rage at the trims :evil: . I was riding in front of the same randomer that Hixee mentioned, and it was great to see his shock at the drop! It was at this point that I broke my phone and ink started to pour through the screen
so apologies for the lack of photos from this point on.
Then I think lunch was called. A few of us headed to the pub and were caught up later by another lot, so that I think CF took over about 3 tables in all! The queue was abysmal and Will got spited by moving queues half way through (hee hee). However, the food arrived like magic about 2 or 3 minutes after ordering. The fact that it was cold was a bit of a let-down, but kinda explained the speed! I ate my chicken breast to the sound of Stereophonics chorusing by Neal and Richard, and had a beer, which was awesome.
We still had ages left till the meet-up time, so the three of us went off to find the fabled ‘house in Alton’s woods’. We found it and spent a while trying to find a way in, creeping round the grounds and playing the Fair Warning game where I hilariously ended up actually IN a conifer! Thanks boys! My arms then went bright red because I’m allergic to conifer and I spent the rest of the day finding bits of twig in areas where there really shouldn’t be twig! Ouch! We rushed back in time for the photo. No-one else seemed like they wanted to bother for the silly one, so I was kinda alone sticking my foot on someone’s head.
Rapids were first up after lunch. I didn’t get very wet which was nice for a change - Bobby Jobby Land’s log flume has scared me for life! It was here that Furie remembered he’d lost his son and had to run back for him, so I ended up in a boat with the family Furie and AJ and Maddie. The mine train was next and didn’t have much to say for itself (except Richard and I trying to figure out if the railway that can be seen was real and abandoned or just theming). Then we trekked off to Duel where I battled with Andrew. I love Duel, it’s music and its theming are excellent, and I had a big smile all the way round <3.
Have a random picture from earlier to break up the text
People were then crying for more coaster action, so Nemesis was called. I walked off to get an ice cream while people were gathering and faffing, but when I turned round, everyone had gone
! I thought I’d spied Ian heading back towards the lake and ran off after him, but when I caught up it was just another bald guy – not THE IanFromCoasterForce! Damn! I ran back and on to Nemmy and found everyone already deep in the queue! So I joined the single rider queue which took ages as they kept forgetting we were even there. Luckily I made it onto the train just after everyone else and people were kind enough to wait for me
Nemesis was **** awesome as usual. I got the back left seat of <3. Roarrrr!!!-times were had.
By then, the day had gone by way too fast and soon the last ride of the day was called; it was to be Errr. We got about a third of the way round the queue when it decided to have a hissy fit. AJ and I sat on the floor ready to camp out, and got yelled at by some vile woman from the other side of the fence for holding up the queue by about two metres! We then shouted abuse back until she left the queue! The wait was long, but cheered up by people’s antics. I managed to break a piece of the queueline fence, but discovered I wasn’t goony enough to take it home! Finally we made it to Err. Despite the threat of heckling I’m going to state again my love of Air. It’s not very intense, but it does do what it says on tin very well indeed – makes you feel like you are flying and soaring. So a great end to the day for me.
We all wandered back to the entrance to say our goodbyes. I had a lovely day despite the crowds, and think Furie did a great job of getting such a huge crowd around the park. I still have yet to do the Flume though! Also, I’d quite like to pop back to Alton one day just to have a better look round the Towers and to explore the Valley properly. Richard and I were staying at Karen and Phil’s house that night (thanks guys, very much appreciated). We beat them back home by quite some time, so headed off into town. We found an awesome Chinese buffet, and by the time we got back carrying beer and cider, I was so tired and stuffed that I was ready for bed. We chatted for a while about aliens, earthquakes and conspiracy theories until sleep got the better of us, our eyes began to close and our thoughts turned to Drayton….
