Feck, how has a week already passed since this Live?
Saturday 24th
The day began with a lovely breakfast at the hotel. One by one CFers were arriving for their share of the grub on offer. There was a nice array of food on offer if a little cold. In the breakfast hall we spotted a group of three peeps who were clearly goons, two of them were wearing some sort of park tee (I think one was Cedar Point?), it was quite the conversation topic for the rest of the day, especially as we kept seeing them both days. We later noted that the older gentleman of the trio was wearing a goon glasses band which was branded with the words "European Coaster Club", they were clearly secretly hoping to join in with the CF Live
When we went back up to the room to collect our bags for the day we looked out our window at the lovely view.
We had a little wait for everyone else so Nic, Mike and I walked around the hotel taking more photos and enjoying the epic detail in the theming.
I loved how the resort looked like a set for a Western, literally the only thing that was missing were peeps in costume (we did have LOTS of characters though) and tumbleweed.
It's so close to creds
The giant pool
There's even a little play park for the kids!
I didn't mean you Nic!
Before long it was time to head over to the hotel's entrance for the park. Tired but very excited we all waited patiently in the little queue that had formed. Due to the staggered opening of the attractions we headed straight for Dragon Khan. Passing lots of attractions, the park looked great. In high spirit we all entered the queue for Khan and was on the next train.
"JOY!" Screamed the dragon
Dragon Khan was awesome, I found myself on the edge of whiting out the whole way round due to its intensity. The inversions were smooth and fun. There was a little bit of roughness but it was like Nemesis' roughness, just adds to the experience. A highlight for me was definitely the second vertical loop, that was great.
Next up was Shambhala, I love the way it towers over Khan, it just looks very impressive. For some reason the staff didn't look at the long queue of peeps waiting to get into the queue to ride and decided that one train operation would be a great idea. Sigh. It didn't really matter, about 3 or 4 trains later and we were on.
The seating really helps make the ride a great one. The openness of the seating makes you feel more unsecured and likely to fall out which with the added huge amounts of airtime makes for a thrilling 3/4 min ride. The ampersand thingymabob was really weird and I'm still not sure what I think of it, it does feel like an inversion and it oddly felt like you were going to hit a support which is crazy because you're nowhere near it, yet at the same time it feels oddly forceless. I really liked the splashdown element too, that was fun. Overall it's a fantastic coaster, B&M have been amazing this year.
I think we automatically went round again, apart from Richard who was spited by the seat/restraint design. I haven't even mentioned the ride's theming yet, it's fantastic. The scupltures and cool landscaping everywhere was just superb. I liked the little waterfall feature into the side of the splashdown pool.
We continued onwards towards the Sesame Street area or Savile Row as it was later dubbed. The route have us some amazing views of Khan.
Sue is always scanning for fish so she was delighted when she discovered PortAventura had magic ones...
Gardaland called, they want their tree back
It was time to grab the next cred, Tami Tami. I spent the entire ride talking to Richard, I don't really remember anything of the ride itself +1
I loved the theming in the area. I loved the fact that the skyline behind it was dominated by two huge B&Ms <3
Most of the group decided to go ride the magical fish of PA. It looked a bit dull.
We then stumbled upon what was soon named 'Sodyssey', much to our amusement. I was kinda gobsmacked at how ridiculously themed it was considering it was just two 4D theaters. The design was slightly Jules Vernian and looked like it was ripped out of Tokyo DisneySea. It even had several animatronics in the queue. It was a big shame then that the films on offer was a turtle film that can be found at like 10 other parks and another shorter film which is what we chose which was dreadful. The 3D was aligned very well and it was all round rubbish really.
In the shop at the exit of the attraction Nic and I found Kinda JOY. This made us happy because we're a bit too obsessed with that word.
The next ride was Furius Baco, urgh. I don't think any of us were looking forward to this. I love the vineyard in the queue, I love the theming for the station and I really loved the forceful launch. You know what I didn't love? The worst trains ever designed in the history of rollercoaster train design. The way it just bounces everywhere, caused me a massive headache (which luckily went away soon after).
We 'broke' for lunch at a place neat to Baco which served fast food. It was ok but I didn't like their bacon, tasted fatty and uncooked. In a rush to get to the arranged 'meeting point' we headed for Stampida and we got distracted by the rapids (cue "But all the water rides are closed" jokes) where Dan and Sue got spited. I stayed off because it wasn't exactly hot and I tend to get spited on water rides.
Next up was the exciting looking rodeo ride that was turdeos.
Then it was time for the dodgems. They were really quick, I approved. As did Richard who immediately made sure he had another go. Ian and Nic were already on the beer (they already had one with lunch). When Mike drove towards us at the end and hit the curb making his glasses fall down his nose it made Nic run off to a bench because she was laughing so much.
We "rushed" to try and make the meeting point and once again were distracted, this time because there were bells and the photo op was too good to miss...
Richard liked the idea of trying to climb up the steel beam and failed, Sue then decided to show us how to do it.
Richard's new job is a train inspector
Yay, finally we were at the 'meeting point'...
Haha, we were sooooo late which, didn't actually matter though because no one actually branched off from the group. Anyway it was time to grab the creds!...I wish we hadn't. What an awful ride. It was just rough and un-enjoyable. It also meant we missed the Christmas wet dream show which turned out we wouldn't get into anyway because we'd already eaten.
We then walked up to the next coaster, Tomahawk. With 10 rows and 10 CFers it was a CF takeover! Not had one of those for a while. It was a fun little coaster, well apart from a tight corner which I wasn't prepared for which meant I slid across the seat and banged my knee on a metal bar, it hurt.
Some of the group then decided to go on the flat ride opposite which actually turned out to be turdeos.
Moving on it was time for the very tall Hurakan Condor. I was looking forward to this because Apocalypse at Drayton is great. Loading was slow and tedious. When on the ride I was so busy trying to take in the landscape that I didn't even realize when we hit the top, we tilted forward and dropped. The drop was over so soon and didn't have much of an impact like say Detonator's.
Outside Condor was a little ice cream kiosk so some of us went to grab some ice cream. Turns out there was an offer and if you ordered 2 or more scoops you got a free bag themed to an ice cream waffle cone, excellent stuff.
Opposite is Templo del Feugo, I had never heard of it before but it sounded exiting. We had just missed one so we had to wait around for quite a long time. We were soon in and introduced to this mad scientist guy. This pre-show room clearly was meant to show off more but this was some revised Christmas version and so nothing really happened. Just the mad man speaking a lot of Spanish. Being ignorant Brits we had no idea what he was on about but we didn't need a translator to realise that the door opened sooner than he had anticipated - much to everyone's amusement.
We then entered the main show room which was excellent. There were so many fire and water effects. I loved the fire on the ceiling effect, pretty cool stuff. I think the majority of us became huge fans of this show and was definitely a hidden gem of this huge park.
Next on our to-do list was the last cred of the park, El Diablo: la cred de lift hills. When everyone nicknamed it lift hills: the ride they weren't joking. The fact there's one bit after a long lift hill where it pretty much swoops down, turns a bit and then straight into another one, it is a bit of a joke. It does have some fun moments though and once again the station building is themed nicely.
One lift hill, ha ha ha...
So what do you do if you've ridden all the rides that you want and you've got hours till the park closes? Re-ride Khan and Shambhala of course!
<3
It's just a mass of B&M, what's not to love?
The station/queueline theming was amazing
I think the group split between Khan and Shambhala re-rides before arranging to meet back up at Baco for a night ride. I don't know who's idea this was but I didn't approve. Why ruin a good day with MORE torturous Baco times?
Now avec headache and the Sun fully set it was back up to China for yep, you guessed it - MORE B&M times. The group got really mixed here and I have no idea who did what and how many rides I got in etc but I do know we all rode Khan and Shambhala a few times.
The on ride cameras on Shambhala had lights on them when it got dark and even the front bit of the train had some little lights on and it made the ride look even better gliding around. As the day went on both of them were only getting better too and the airtime on Shambhala was just ridiculous.
Mike and I wanted to catch the parade and lake show so we headed off to catch that with the plan being that we would find everyone else back at the hotel bar. We just about managed to catch the parade. It had plenty of characters and dancers and a little catchy song. I loved the train at the end where Sesame Street characters were sitting with families and interacting with the little kids. I thought that was really nice.
It was then time for the evening lake show. Mike and I tried to get past the crowds to find a decent spot. We ended up watching it from one of the boats on the lake, I thought this was pretty cool. The show itself started off with a random fountain-light show like one of the Disney shows. It was ok but was a bit repetitive and long. It then went on to have some random singular fireworks before bringing out some floats. They had these huge sculptures of the three kings bringing presents, representing the start of Christmas season?
There were then some more fireworks, the floats moved to the dock areas blocking the view for loads of people. More fireworks happened and then the floats went back. The fireworks were a bit awful. It's a shame, the show had all the right elements of something great but not entirely done in the right way or in a way that is entertaining. Shame.
We met up with Nic (who had also come to see the show) and had a little look around the shop. They had coaster track...
And Baco tees with the wrong coaster on it...
<3<3<3<3
We then headed back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else. Looking at all the Christmassy stuff on the way.
We met up with everyone else in the Saloon bar where we proceeded to drink alcoholic beverages and make the word vadge out of 'items found on the table'. Below was the end result...
Outside the saloon the cookie monster appeared so I proceeded to get a picture with him and make a camp pose...
He loved the fact I was from the UK (he demonstrated this by constantly pointed at my t-shirt and giving me a thumbs up). He then gave me a high five, then Nic and then went to give Sue one but she was burdenous - as always. Not realising what was going on the cookie monster wasn't happy and when he put his hand out again and she went to give him a high five he moved his hand out of the way. Oh that cookie monster, what a cheeky little boy. Nic and I were pissing ourselves laughing at this.
We then went to join everyone else in the Opera restaurant. This place was amazing and I thought it looked great with everyone sitting at the long table. Especially with Ian from Coasterforce sitting at the head of it.
I loved the food, I thought it was great and at a decent price considering it was at a 4* resort hotel.
Some of the others got huge steak..
Full of food it was time to somehow organize the bill and move to the other bar for more alcohol. Frustratingly one of the doors to the outside was open the whole time we were there which meant it was freezing cold inside but we put up with it and spent a very long time in there. At one point Jordan put something in Richard's hair and he just didn't realize it was there. It wasn't until we were all trying to hold in our laughter and I tried to capture it on camera that he noticed.
Jordan and Sue did a bit of singing -
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBr_wC0-OIE&feature=share&list=UU2TjyrrH3vx0WkNPkzp4C6w[/youtube]
My night ended shortly after the huge round of cocktails as I was tired and arguments had started up between Sue and Rich.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully the wait for part 3 won't be too long
