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TR:USA October'16 : SFoG/Dollywood/FunSpot/HHN/Seaworld/Universal/BuschGardensTampa/H-o-S

davidm

Strata Poster
So if you pay attention to the way I seem to behave, you'll have noticed that I tend to go away for a couple of weeks around
this time of year. If you have paid any real attention then you might expect that this would be somewhere interesting like it has
been for the last few years, however this year for some reason I had failed to motivate myself to organise anything very
interesting and with my booked-off-work days rapidly approaching I booked a bit of a basic trip to Florida (via some diversions on
the way of course :) ).



Day1 : Out...
Day2 : Six Flags over Georgia / Fright Fest
Day3 : Lookout Mountain
Day4 : Gatlinburg / lots of (alpine) coasters
Day5 : Dollywood
Day6 : Great Smoky Mountains
Day7 : Athens, GA
Day8 : Georgia National Fair
Day9 : Funspot / HHN
Day10 : Seaworld
Day11 : Universal
Day12 : Universal / HHN
Day13 : Busch Gardens / Howl-o-Scream
Day14 : OrlandoEye / Orlando Tat
Day15 : ...Home
 
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davidm

Strata Poster
Re: TR:USA October'16 : SFoG...etc

Saturday 1st October

Because I'd only booked flights the week before, I had not been able to get the super-convenient direct flights between Manchester
and where I wanted to start/end up (Atlanta, Orlando) - so had a bit of a longer trip via Newark - flights were fine, Newark
(domestic) airport is a bit of a dump though (the terminal I flew back from 2 weeks later was a lot nicer). And whats the point
of downloading a United-App so that you can check-in online when you still have to check-in again manually (and Q for ages to do
so) at the airport - pah! Anyway flights are flights, functional rather than any fun and they weren't expensive.

Got to Atlanta early evening and picked up rental car bland piece of crap Kia Rio - possibly the worst rental car I've ever
had, hmmm.

Had a slight issue then, in that the satnav (just on my new-ish phone) was failing to lock on ; was the first time I'd used that
phone abroad (I had dropped my last phone where I knew the satnav worked OK on and smashed the screen so had just bought a cheapo
handset for about the same cost of replacing the screen on the previous phone). Hotel was only about 2 miles from the airport
but since I was relying on a non-functioning satnav I ended up driving around (mostly in circles I think) for about 1/2 hour
before I found it and crashed out for the night.

Hmmm could be a challenge for next two weeks travelling without a reliable satnav...

Car of blandness;




Sunday 2nd October

Plan B for the satnav was that I had brought an even older phone with me (since I half suspected the new cheapo phone may have
struggled) which I'd used for years - so I knew worked OK in the USA for satnav purposes. But fired that up in the morning
to get me to Six Flags (but I knew the way anyway, its pretty easy to get to just off a major motorway type road) - but that
was also struggling - it would get a lock on position, but was seemingly lagging hugely, being about 3 minutes behind where I
actually was on the road. Hmmm "Plan B" also perhaps looking a bit useless...

Anyway, worry about that later, I've got to Six Flags over Georgia by now.




Its not much more than 2 years (Spring '14) since I was here before, so wasn't really needing to visit - the main plan for the
trip was to get to Dollywood (which I'd also only been to 2 years before) for Lightning Rod, just needed some goon-like activities
to flesh it out a bit, and SFoG seemed like a reasonable idea. (I'd even been in this neck of the woods last year, driving past
Atlanta after going to Carowinds, so it was all a bit familiar to be honest)

Anyway Fright Fest was happening this time, so there was at least something different going on to keep me amused - had done
a Six Flags Fright Fest at Magic Mountain last year and it was OK - but more on that later (after dark).

Entrance way was all done up Fright Fest like quite nicely...


Six Flags, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to VR Dare Devil Dive this season - I'd read nightmare tales of the
operations on it though and was kinda curious about what was happening with it. For Fright Fest they had changed the story on it
from the original "New Revolution" thing, and they were only running it with VR after 6pm ; but I headed to it first as on
my trip 2 years ago operations had been quite slow anyway.



Its a good enough ride though ; trains are really comfortable - but it doesn't do too much more than any other eurofighter
(apart from the nicer trains that is)





VR looms;



Oh look, they have built a new "coaster" since I was last here, on the way into the Gotham area is THE JOKER Chaos Coaster.



Horrible things really, not at all a coaster of course. I did ride it, but not sure I'll bother with any of these again. Don't
think I encountered any more on this trip anyway.

Much more worthy, and a really great (old) Schwarzkopf is opposite that Joker-aberration though Mind Bender - and it is
walk-on and lovely.







Next Gotham-themed coaster is their Batman The Ride - which had made me a bit ill 2 years previously, possibly due to the
weather as well though, today was hot but pleasant and nothing like as hot and unpleasant as it was in the Spring time.

And Batman was not very busy either;



Great ride still though.





Headed over to Goliath next for a couple of rides on that awesome thing - also very unbusy with only a one or two train
wait - the ops in fact were really doing well, you could tell that they were on some sort of scheme as they were trying to
dispatch trains in 30s which amazed me - never seen Six Flags work like that. Saw them even refuse to let someone ride who had
just been slow sticking their things in the cubby and returning to their seat - they had locked the seat and ushered the girl out
the exit so as to hit their quick dispatch. Wow.









Wandering towards the back of the park, they had rethemed their kiddie-coaster from "Wile E. Coyote Canyon Blaster" to something
in keeping with the new kiddie super hero area that had sprung up around it Joker Funhouse Coaster - a bit better than
the usual plonked down kiddie-rides as it is rather built into the building housing it.





Also new (but not really) is Blue Hawk - which had had new trains and a paint-job since I'd last been here (and since
its starring role in that "Vacation" film too). It always was (and still is) quite a photogenic thing, sat on a lake and all
twisty-track and the like.





Can't say that the new trains made it a fantastic experience, but the vest-restraints were not as uncomfortable as the old solid
OTSR ones at least.



Next door to Ninja Blue Hawk is a big huge old woody, that I quite like Great American Scream Machine so I
have a couple of walkon rides on that too - really enjoyed that, even if people on the same train were all moaning and "never
riding THAT again" - honestly wasn't rough or painful at all.





Big construction wall (and not much construction to be honest - just a large concrete floor poured) where the dodgems used to
be and where their new Justice League dark ride will be next year;



This is right next to Superman - Ultimate Flight, not quite a walk-on this, not going to complain about a 10 min Q on a
weekend though.





Next up is their old mine train Dahlonega Mine Train - a bit rough to honest, but always nice to ride a ride thats older
than I am!



Tried to take some snaps of their (famous?) boat dark ride Monster Mansion - they didn't really come out though ; its actually
a pretty good example of the "trip around some animatronic scenes" ride and worth a go if the Q isn't too burdenous.





Only a couple of coasters left, Georgia Cyclone is next - had only rode it the once on my last visit so had a couple of
rides today and it was still good I thought. Keeps getting fanboy-wish-listed as a RMC conversion but think I'd rather they
keep it as is with some TLC.



(Last coaster to ride is the stand-up Georgia Scorcher, but I don't ride that until later in the day during Fright Fest)

Done a "lap" of the park now, so just wander around for a while, waiting for the Fright stuff to start I guess.





A couple of Fright Fest things were open in the afternoon - I had seen one earlier without even realising what it was but wandered
over to it to check it out once I'd picked up my Fright Fest wristband (had opted for the front-of-line version as it was only
$10 more than the standard one). If you look on the website (or the park map even) then The Last Ride looks
like its a major attraction (like the maze/haunted houses are) - but its not. Its a coffin that you lie in, they shut the lid
and the coffin rattles around a bit. They only have the one coffin, so there is a bit of a Q for it, even with my "fastpass" it
looked awful though, so I didn't even bother. Pathetic that.

One house is open in the late afternoon so I start Fright Fest proper with that Dr. Fright’s Frightorium 3-D.
The "3-D" gives it away as being a chromadepth job - cardboard 3D glasses and funny paint giving that odd depth sensation. The
house itself was OK - a not big budget wander through some clowns / hospital / asylum thingy (or something like that), nothing
too original ; standard stuff.

By now it was a bit before 6pm, when the Fright Fest proper started up. This was also when they were meant to start the VR
(Rage of the Gargoyles) thing on Dare Devil Dive, so I headed into that Q a bit before 6, trying to be clever by thinking by
the time I'd worked my way through the Q the VR would be running.

I'll repost what I wrote about it in another topic;

--

Rode this today (at SFoG).

What a miserable, useless, tiresome, pathetic experience that was.

The headsets seemed nice enough - just the implementation on an otherwise perfectly good roller coaster was awful though.

It was advertised (in a lot of places around the park / on the Fright Fest maps etc) as being available from 6pm - so I joined the Q 5 mins before that ; by the time I got to the station (maybe 20mins) they still weren't dispatching with the headsets and they were just standing around looking at the things. Eventually they started deploying them (by which time I was almost at the head of the line) but there was a bit of aggro going on as people didn't want to be dispatched on the non-VR ride if the VR-ride was about to be available (6:40 by now). They didn't really seem to have any clue about their operations, sometimes the front loaded train got VR, sometimes it didn't. They had no way of calling people who didn't want to ride the VR through the Q so everything was slow by then.

Eventually get on, still no consistent operations - I had been watching them hand out headsets to the people in the Q about to board, but when I boarded they didn't give you the headset until you were locked in the seat.

Chap fits the headset - all OK so far, but all I can see is a black screen with a message on saying the operator will help me in a moment. Operator comes round, checks the fit of the thing and says can you see "Ready jet #3" or something ; the message changes so I say ok.

I look around and it dawns on me that I'm not actually looking at a black screen, I'm looking backwards - i.e. "into" the seat that my virtual fighter pilot bloke is sitting in. So if I crane my head around and look backwards, then I can kinda see the view I'm meant to be seeing looking forwards. Does not bode well does it.

So we've dispatched by then, and as we zoom around the track the headset is sliding all over the place, I can't really see anything - the odd Gargoyle flying past randomly perhaps. By the time we hit the brake run the direction has corrected itself and I can see forwards at last so I can shoot a few Gargoyles while we wait to get off.

Ride op takes the headset ; "did it work" she asks everyone as she does this - I explain my experience with it, she reacts like thats quite normal and thats it.

I stood outside the ride afterwards and considered doing it again with some better knowledge of what should be happening, and I decide I really can't be bothered.

VR itself is fine, just has no place on a roller coaster and no place in a theme park at all in my view (ref DBGT).

I really don't want them to sort out the operational nightmare that it currently is, I want the fad to fade before they do that and VR to return to being a virtual experience, which is kinda the point isn't it?

29996191001_24dc56e33a_c.jpg




--



So that wasn't great then and I move on looking for another haunted house.

Mummy's Curse was indoors (as was the 3D one earlier), so figured could do that while there was still a bit
of daylight left (not much, its almost dark by now). This was an odd one, turned out the building it was in wasn't really very
big and the thing was a bit more "experience" than "haunt". they let you in in a small group and give one of you a small torch,
apart from that there is no lighting in there, but its only a couple of rooms and only a couple of monsters in the room - s'pose
the idea is that the small group / pitch black makes up for the lack of content ; but I thought it was a bit useless really.

So one OK house and a bunch of crap so far ; luckily it got a bit better after that.

Dark by now, I head to one of the bigger haunts - not a house this though, the rather unimaginatively named Terror Train
is rather unsurprisingly a theming of the park's train. Throughout the day I had noticed that the train route had been mostly
shielded from view from the park by big walls of black sheeting - this was all over the park so was assuming that they had
gone to some lengths with this train ride.

It boiled down to a ride on the train that then gets overrun, not by theme-park bandits (which is the usual schtick on these
theme park train rides) but by theme-park flesh-eating cannibal inbred hillbilly type people. There were a few scenes on the way
around the train ride and then they evacuate the train (at a different station to the one we got on at) and we are deposited in
the hillbilly town from which we eventually escape. All rather good actually, really liked this.

Next up was a mostly outdoor haunt set up in the queue line & station for the park's rapids ride - Bayou Bloodlust.
This was also really good - something to do with Voodoo or werewolves or something like that infesting a swampland, there was a
long wonder up the queue line with periodic monsters popping up out of the shadows/shrubbery and the odd scene area. I got
possibly my only genuine fright (since you become aware of where people are going to jump out at you) when someone grabbed
my leg from low down beside the queue line and I hadn't spotted them - I did jump! There was some scenes in the rapids
station then a wander back down the queue line with more of the same. Good stuff this one then.

Last haunt was the curiously named ZX-1. Rather than some dystopian nightmare involving the prototype home
computers of Sir Clive Sinclair this was a similar setup to the Aftermath maze at Magic Mountain the previous year - was a wander
through the stunt-show arena that had all gone dystopian future zombie outbreak type thing. Didn't seem as good as Aftermath
(had really liked that one), but still wasn't bad at all - some scripted scenes were good before they dumped you in the walkthru
bit - liked this too then.



So had done all the haunted house type things and wandered around the park in the dark a bit - rode a few night rides on a couple
of the coasters (Mind Bender, Cyclone) which was nice, but was a bit wiped out by a long day and it being the first day of a trip
so a bit time-zoned out too so called it a day around 9pm (park had been open since noon)





Night time shots not really working on my compact camera either.







Good event though ; perhaps not quite as good as Magic Mountain's one. Three good haunts and a bit of crap/filler - can't say I
noticed the scare zones very much either, but perhaps wasn't looking for them.

Heading back to the hotel, I turned on my (new cheapo phone) satnav and it locked immediately - perfect, my satnav glitches had
vanished and all was well with the world (and I didn't have to work out driving directions before I started driving the next day
- Yay!)
 
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davidm

Strata Poster
Re: TR:USA October'16 : SFoG...etc

Monday 3rd October

The last two years I had driven up the same bit of road from Atlanta to Chatanooga - 2 years ago heading straight through to
Dollywood, last year stopping off at Lake Winnie in Chatanooga - both times I'd seen copious road-side advertising (like you
do all over the USofA) for a place called Lookout Mountain and various "attractions" therein. So this time, since I was basically
looking for stuff to fill a few days with I figured I have a proper looksee as to what that was all about.

First stop on the Lookout Mountain trail for me then was the Incline Railway (LINK).
This is a 100-odd year old railway that takes you up (well mostly up) the mountain itself - built as a bit of an attraction
rather than for any great industrial purpose it was quite interesting; gets at one stage to a pretty steep 70-odd degree
angle as well.

One train was just leaving as I turned up, so had to hang about 20 mins for the next one.



View to the top station from the bottom.



The whole thing;





Onboard POV?





At the top;



Bit of a view from up there - downtown Chatanooga;



Advert for the next stop;



There wasn't much at the top station apart from the view, and I didn't fancy any of the options at the cafe place for lunch so
just got the train back down the mountain again.



Then had to drive back up the mountain (not quite as steeply a route as the train had just taken) to get to the next place.

Next stop was that advertised Rock City (LINK)- not, as one might suspect, some heavy metal nightclub but some fancy gardens
all built in and around some rock formations at the top of Lookout Mountain. Most of the place had been developed by some old dear
back in the day - various curios and the like set amongst the rocks but its claim to fame seemed to be that it had been heavily
advertised throughout the southern US by painting adverts on the side of farmer's barns. So the "See Rock City" slogan became
famous in these parts.



After some lunch I headed into the attraction proper ; just ends up as a meandering wander through these rocks for a while
until you hit the cliff edge.











Legend has it (i.e. its a bit of marketing blurb) that from here you could see seven US States - apparently really the most you
can see is 3 though - ha ha marketing for you there!







"See Seven States" - yeah right!











The walk back through the rocks (you don't walk back the same way you came, its all a long meander) takes in some underground
bits where there were lots of black-light fairytale scenes set up. Like seriously there were loads of them, ending in a big
underground hall with a giant town scene. All very strange, but mildly amusing.













So that was Rock City, not an unpleasant way to kill a couple of hours at least.



Last stop on the tourist-trap-trail was Ruby Falls (LINK). This is a underground
cave system - party man-made in that they had to dig out a lot of stone to get from where they had drilled an elevator
shaft to where they found some interesting underground stuff (they had build the elevator shaft to get to another cave system
which they knew about and happened upon what became Ruby Falls in the mean time).



So you get this elevator down into the mountain, then wander through some underground tunnels (these are the party man-made ones)
for a while



The underground rock formations were quite cool, but nothing like you wouldn't see in any other underground cave system that
you might come across.





At the end of the trek is an underground waterfall though (the "Ruby Falls" itself), which was pretty spectacular. Of course they
jazz it up a bit by keeping it in the dark until you have made your way into the cavern then doing a sudden big reveal with the
fancy lights and music - but to be fair, it worked and was quite cool.





You get your few minutes wow-ing at the waterfall - and it was a bit wow honestly - then trek back through the tunnels to the
elevator ; takes about an hour all told for the visit.





Theres a little lookout tower back on the surface and a gift shop - there was a halloween attraction there where they use another
tunnel (the emergency exit tunnel should the elevator break down) as a haunt, but it only ran on weekends and today was a Monday.







So I'd successfully occupied a day getting from Atlanta to Chatanooga (even stayed at the same hotel as I did the previous year)
and doing the tourist-thing. If you needed to occupy a few hours in the local area I'd recommend it, but cant say you would want
to go out of your way to see any of it (unless you had some odd rock/cave/train obsession that is).

Wandered around a local mall for a bit and a bite to eat in the evening, but was planning an earlyish start the next day so didn't
hang about much or go in search of anything more thrilling that night.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Re: TR:USA October'16 : SFoG...etc

Tuesday 4th October

So I'm heading towards Dollywood, but Dollywood isn't open in October on Tuesdays (no, no idea) so have another day to kill. Had
wanted to have a look at the mountains nearby as they were meant to be something, so had planned a few days to get into Dollywood-
country, do Dollywood and get out of Dollywood-country. Today was the getting in day and started early for the couple of hours
it would take me to get up there from Chatanooga.

Had only been 2-and-a-bit years since I'd been around here, so there was little novelty in Pigeon Forge, however the previous
visit I had not got any further into the mountains than Pigeon Forge, so today I headed straight through and up into the next
tourist town, just before the entrance the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg. (Bit surprised that it was only
10minutes further up the road than Pigeon Forge to be honest, for some reason I had thought it was further).



Gatlinburg was an odd place ; I didn't not like it, but I didn't like it as such either. Very touristy, awful traffic winding
through the main street, lots of scabby motels and the like, but the touristy bits weren't bad and amazingly (for a US town)
everything was packed close to each other. Unlike Pigeon Forge - which is one huge strip mall of things strung out down the
highway, if you want to go anywhere you are getting in your car and driving there - Gatlinburg was a dump-your-car-and-walk
everywhere place. A nice change for the US I thought. So much so, that if you were visiting here without a car, I think you'd
be better off in Gatlinburg than Pigeon Forge, just to give you the option of wandering around the place at night or if you wanted
a bar crawl or such.

Anyway I crawled through Gatlinburg in the car to the far end of the town and parked up in the car park (they all charge for
parking in the town) for the Ober Gatlinburg cable car. Ober Gatlinburg is a ski-resort even further up in the mountains than
Gatlinburg, you can drive up there but there is a big cable-car from Gatlinburg up there as well which looked more fun.

The reason you might want to go up to the ski-resort is just because theres some tat up there, including a reasonably new - opened August last year - (alpine) coaster, so after Q-ing for a bit for the cable-car up there I go.









Its a bit odd up there too ; the cable-car deposits you in a big warehouse like building full of tat and stalls and an ice rink,
out the back is the amusement area with some ski lifts and toboggan runs and the like





And off to the side, beyond the car park is the first (alpine) coaster of the day ; Ski Mountain Coaster.



Its not busy (at all) so head on in, $15 one ride $36 for three rides - didn't seem like good value that so just the one I think.





I didn't realise at the time, but this isn't the same manufacturer as the other alpine coasters I'd ridden (i.e. not Wiegand, but
someone called Aquatic Development Group) - the cart looks pretty much the same though and the track looks much the same.









However it rode noticeably different to the Wiegand ones ; much more bouncy/juddery - less fun. Glad I only sprung for the one
ride then.







Having made the effort to get up here I hung about a bit ; there was a chair lift to the top of the mountain so had a go on that
and got off half way up (chair lift didn't stop, just hopped off) to have a go on the toboggan - wasn't bad, although I did
get shouted at for not holding on with both hands but I was going slowly anyway as stupid woman in front of me was going
stupid slowly.





Then got back on the same chair lift and went to the top to see the view.





Was nice enough, not sure it needed the country band playing up there though.



Headed back down the chair lift, then the cable car back to Gatlinburg.





Ober Gatlinburg wasn't awful - there was a bit of Octoberfest stuff happening, German beers and food and the like, so if that took
your fancy then looked OK. Huge Q for the cable car going up when I got back down though, so logistic-wise might be a bit faff-full.



I'd driven past the next (alpine) coaster on the way into Gatlinburg, but took the opportunity to wander through the town to it
rather than get straight back in the car - probably 1/2 hour walk through the town, enjoying the tourist tat.





Another chair lift;



Awesome Antiques!



Get to the other end of the town then - still blazing hot in the direct Sun by the way, even for October - and the next goon-stop
Gatlinburg Mountain Coaster.





This one is $16 - didn't see any repeat/multi ride prices though I think.





Was much better than the Ski Mountain Coaster though - that extra $1 worth it for a smoother, faster ride and the fact that you
don't have to get a $12 cable car to get to it makes this a much better option for your quick (alpine) coaster fix.







Wander back up through the town (it is on a slight hillside so "up" is accurate), lamenting the fact I'm driving so can't partake
in any of the free-moonshine offerings that seemed available (very tourist-focussed of course rather than some hillbilly
at the side of the road)







Get back to the cable car station to pick up my car and work my way slowly through the traffic back to Pigeon Forge...





And a couple of miles or so out of Pigeon Forge is the next (alpine) coaster...



The Coaster at Goats on the Roof - certainly the most originally named of them today! This one is $15, and had a $5 reride
option - bargain!





And they get better - this was much faster than the previous one and a noticeably longer course.

Some goats. These not on the roof though.





Took up the re-ride option on this as well (well for $5 why wouldn't you?)







About a mile back towards Pigeon Forge is the oldest of the 4 local (alpine) coasters, and the only one I'd ridden before,
Smoky Mountain Alpine Coaster.



And this one was $15, with $8 rerides.



Longer than the other three, this is possibly the best of the 4 (but I did like the speed on the Goats one more than this one)
and the course is more complex than the others (more helixes).



I have 2 rides on that one too, just because.





(Alpine) coasters done then, not a bad way for a goon to spend most of a day, could even pretend I was sight-seeing up a mountain
and a resort town couldn't I?

Here is a comparison & links to some POVs of the 4 things ; http://www.coaster101.com/2016/01/29/sm ... omparison/

--

Found my hotel in Pigeon Forge - wasn't the best, but was walkable to some bars and stuff and that was the main thing!
Big beer and a big burger in the Smoky Mountain Brewery then (everything round here is the "Smoky Mountain something" it seems)



Next stop Dollywood, just have to see if that RMC is running in the morning then... :)
 

Pink Cadillac

Giga Poster
Re: TR:USA October'16 : SFoG...etc

Never thought of doing a road trip that ends in Orlando! The alpine coasters look amazing but I keep having visions of me racing along and someone has stopped, hidden round a corner and then I crash...
Looking forward to Dollywood.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Re: TR:USA October'16 : SFoG..Lots of (alpine) coasters..etc

Wednesday 5th October

Cheapo hotel I'm in doesn't have any breakfast...



but they have some agreement with the dodgy pancake-house on the opposite side of the road, so I wander across just the 8 lines
of traffic for breakfast (luckily the main drag thru Pigeon Forge is quite quiet early on) - wasn't great but was only $5 so
not really complaining.



Fuelled up for the day ahead (I find a BIG breakfast works well on these trips to get through the day) I head off to the nearby
Dollywood in search of RMC goodness.



Now, it was only in May 2014 that I was here before (TR here) and whilst I had liked the place, I really hadn't envisaged
coming back quite so soon, but they go and build that supposedly good RMC and have the good-grace to be operating in the week while I was in search of places to visit occupy my holiday times, so here I am again!

This RMC has had an interesting season hasn't it ; plagued with issues its seemingly been 'down' more that its been 'up'. I had
looked up TRs and the like covering the few weeks before I had left and it had appeared to be running in that period, so while I
wasn't fully confident that it'd be running I had given myself a couple of days in the general area (tomorrow and at at a stretch
the next day) if I needed to come back so I was reasonably optimistic that I'd get on it at some point. :)

Get into the park a bit before 10 and wander up to see how the rope-drop situation worked with regard to the new ride. In my
previous visit there was nothing of note in the area that the RMC lives in, apart from some Dolly Parton-tat so I had not really
paid any attention to the area.

Chatting to a security chap at what seemed to be the nearest access point, he was all "no idea whether its running today; it often
doesn't
" and that was not really helping my goon-mood. Could see the ride from where I was, but it wasn't testing :(



Anxiety increases...



But 10am comes, theres plenty of people gathered with a similar plan to me and no-one is saying its not running and off we
all rush to the Lightning Rod station.

(no pics for a little while, I was busy gooning, will make up for that in a bit tho')

I'm in the first dozen or so peeps standing outside the station (I'm only not first because I wasn't quite sure where the way in
to the Q was since the doors were shut - d'oh), but I still haven't seen it cycle. A fair Q has built up behind me though
so this probably all looks ON then! :)

After seemingly ABSOLUTELY AGES (probably <5 minutes) an op comes and opens the station doors and asks us not to rush, but to
follow him.... YAY! :)

Station is really well done, themed like a 1950s garage, tinkering with Hot Rods and the like - loads of detail and little
things to look at - but not just at this moment since I get to rush through the whole line straight to the loading station, which
sits on the second floor of the building, so the Q snakes through the front of the building at ground level and then at the back
of the building there is two levels of back and forth with stairs to negotiate.

Assigned seating though, so no heading to the BACK just yet but I'm in the first train of the day, so all is good really! :) :)

Train slides out of the station onto the lift hill - into the launch and...

...bit underwhelming to be honest, the start is OK as the launch kicks in, but it doesn't really accelerate or anything, just
drags you up the hill a bit quicker than a chain-lift would (but apart from the first hit of the launch it doesn't really feel
much better than a good cable-lift).

And then the launch gives out, and you are not even at the top of the hill ; maybe 5/6 of the way up. Hmmm. So you do coast over
the first hill at the top of the launch hill, but its not particularly forceful or fast. That first hill is just a little drop
and back up again into a BIG hill then and it starts to get interesting. That BIG drop lets out into a big sideways hill
(like the second big hill on Wildfire, but it twists to the left rather than the right) and then another hill where it twists
sideways again to the left then right.

By now its heading back up the hillside that it sits on and there are a couple of smaller bumps before it heads over that hilltop
into its stand-out section; the rather awesome quad-down. Not settling with just the 4 bumps as it gets back to the station area
then there is another airtime pop before that big momentum sapping turn and into the brakes - stops a bit suddenly to be honest
but by that point everyone on the train is smiling - don't think I saw anyone sat on the brake run that day without some wide
smile on their face! :)

So it was good, very good. Couple of superb moments, and pretty relentless speed once it got going (after that BIG hill).

BUT...I didn't love it after that first ride, unlike Wildfire which I just loved from the first moment. There are a few problems
with it too (not that Wildfire doesn't also have a couple of problems) - the launch is not great and the ending also lacks
something (you come off that big turn and a little drop and then just grind to a halt - perhaps just a finishing line flag or
something would help you understand the ride is done at that point). Also, one train operations - presumably for technical
rather than operational reasons, is not good on your new popular ride is it.

Obviously not going to let one ride form my opinion though, and head straight back in - already the Q is something like 30 mins
(this is only moments after the coaster has opened of course), but that means I can pay a bit more attention to the Q line.





Full of little garage-detailing and signage, its really well done.







They've not yet opened all the Q sections though so still only walking through part of the themeing.







While you are on the stairs at the end of the building there is one of the few places you can see the ride from the Q





Smiley brake run people;





Not so lightning-launch;



Mid quad-down though, thats a bit good.



Finishing flag at the bottom of this bit I mean, otherwise it just kinda grinds to a halt here.



Loading;



Second ride is towards the back and doesn't substantially change my "very good, but not DAAA BESSTT THING EVAHHH" opinion.

but I head straight back into the Q again afterwards. :)





Q has built up further by now, and that third ride was 45 mins wait. Despite its intensity its a comfortable ride and very
re-ridable I think (Qs permitting), shame the ops are slow this season (when its even running).













But I'm a happy goon, RMC done and the gamble I was taking travelling all this way for the one ride (lets face it, that was what
I was really doing wasn't it) had paid off. :)







Felt I should at least have a ride on everything else while I was here, so headed off around the park for a bit (will be back
later of course).

There was some "National Southern Gospel & Harvest Celebration" going on at the park ; this passed me by mainly but there seemed
to be a few (more than you would usually expect) sing-y show things going on to keep OAPs entertained;



Wandering up towards the back of the park (Lightning Rod is down the front of the park in the 'older' section I guess, whereas
most of the other big stuff that they have built at the park in the Dollywood-era is towards the back) the first coaster you
come across is this thing, which isn't really much of a coaster Blazing Fury.



Its 90% dark-ride as you wind yourself up and around the inside of the building with these scenes going on, then the last bit
is a little drop and short coaster section. (Probably as much coaster as that Harry Potter one at Universal Studios that I'll
get to in a few days).

Much more worthy, in a coastery way, is just behind that though, Tennessee Tornado


And thats quite good for an ageing Arrow looper. Its a bit short to be honest ; big drop, few loops and then it stops - feel it
could do a little bit more at the end with the momentum it has still got.





Just around the corner from the looper are a couple more coasters (I did say everything was round the back of this park) and I
opt for a quick lap on the rather good FireChaser Express first.



This was new the last time I was here and looks to have settled in well ; nice little ride - "family coaster" looking but is a
bit more substantial than that I think with some nice swoopy bits and a couple of little launches thrown in too.

And fire too - everythings better with fire!









Opposite that is Wild Eagle, the big B&M wing coaster. Recall being slightly underwhelmed by this on my last visit, perhaps
because it looks so big and complicated but doesn't deliver as much on that as some of the other versions of this type.



Short (5 min) Q so I head to the front, slightly scuppered though as they choose that moment to add the second train to the
ride, so a bit more than 5 minutes in the end.



Entertained as I am as a geek coaster goon by watching them add the train, found that the station view of the last coaster was
quite good also.



Ride both sides of that ; right-front and left-back - its OK, good even, just not as good/interesting as some of the other ones.







Splash Battle drained for the season - I can understand that since its October and all, but its not cold weather or anything,
still very hot weather and reasonable crowds. But what do I know?



Next up is their complicated eurofighter Mystery Mine - pretty good this, fair bit of themeing, some interesting elements
and surprise stuff going on inside.









Last coaster for me to ride today (got the kiddie cred Sideshow Spin on my last visit - such shame - so I don't even wander into
the Country Fair area that it lives in either) is their other nice woody, but when I get there, disaster; closed!



Closed due to wasps! What?



Seems by now (early afternoon) the local wasp population shuts rides down. Wild Eagle is shut too. You'd think they would have
found some way of putting the wasps off (actually there were mist sprayers at the top of the rides, assume that might be some
(unsuccessful) attempt at getting rid of the little devils).

Hmmm, I figure I'll go back and play on the RMC (which is currently running) instead then.



By now they have the full-Q at the back of the station (but not the cattle-pen bit at the front of the station luckily) open and
full, so the wait is another 45 minutes or so, but I snag the back row this time (and we all know back s best on RMCs don't we!)

Spot some other issues on it though that hadn't occurred earlier, worst of all theres a real thud/jolt at the bottom of the BIG
hill, really noticeable and uncomfortable. There was another jolt later (forget where now though) as well - not good.

But that doesn't stop me heading around again, frankly its the reason I'm here isn't it and its got to mid afternoon by now so if
not now, when?

Another 30 min Q and still underneath the station when it occurs to me (and the other peeps) that we haven't seen a dispatch in
a little while. :( after a few more minutes theres a "temporary stoppage" announcement :( :( and peeps start leaving the Q.

I'm made of sterner stuff (goonier stuff?) though so wait it out, moving up the Q as people leave. Doesn't stay down for long and
they start dispatching again! YAY! :)

Get to the stairs just before the station a few minutes later and the train has stopped at the launch though. Uh oh. :(



Sits there for a while, then they evac it. Doesn't look good. :(



They are announcing its proper-down by now. :( :(

But they are not clearing the station, so with little better to do I just hang around.



To their credit though, they don't take too long to sort out the stall (say 20 minutes), send the empty train around a couple of
times and then reopen it. YAY! :) :)

Ride row 2 that time then and the jolts are really noticeable - but the ride is still good.



Given its been shut down, the Q has also died down, so cycle back for my last (6th) ride on it and 20 mins Q-ing (and some
negotiation with the batching op) gets me on the back row again. :)



Getting on a bit (5pm, park shuts at 6) head back to the wasp-spited woody Thunderhead which is running again (Wild Eagle
is still closed but opens up as I am in the short Q for Thunderhead).



This is great too, nice complicated layout that moves back and forth across a little valley that the coaster sits in. Great
stuff - I like, so have a couple of rides!





Half five by now, and I want to look at the Lightning Rod tat-shop before I go (and I figure that might shut dead on 6) so head
round the park in that direction.



Wasps have shut Tornado too it seems, and Rod is apparently broken again;



Anti-wasp misters?







Rod is running by the time I get there, so take a few snaps;







Lightning Tat wasn't upto much, lots of mugs so get one of them (but its not really what I wanted, just the better of an odd
bunch) and a retro-magnet (was thinking of a retro-styled mug to be honest) - lots of tacky Lightning Rod TShirts, but I'm not
that goony am I? ;)

30547015582_47a4a87229.jpg


30547016602_9c6f35e1f0.jpg


As predicted tat shop (and ride Q) shut at 6 - they close the station down, shut all the windows etc



Could have snuck through here though for a last ride ;)



So that was that, very nice day at the park, nice new RMC done, no need for those back-up days (apparently it was shut the next
day anyway). Place is probably a 2-day park now, OK it was a quiet day today but I spent a lot of time in Lightning Rod's Q (and
not much time Q-ing for anything else) - imagine on busy days the place could be a pain. But to be fair on busier days they are
open longer - night rides on Lightning Rod might be a very nice thing as a lot of it happens off in the woods away from the
park. Hmmmm.

No halloween stuff here really ; few carved pumpkins but more in keeping with the harvest festival than anything too spooky.
Halloween-stuff not really Dollywood's target market perhaps!



--

Back in Pigeon Forge for the evening, not a coaster despite what they may say;



Head into "The Island" area at night, this was just being finishing construction last time I was here and has ended up being a
nice enough area (close to my hotel) for evening strolling/eating/etc. Disney-Springs-lite?

Food place (some Grill) wasn't that great, the brewery place the night before was much nicer and I'd eaten in local bars on
my previous visit which were better,



But rest of the Island was lit up nice. Didn't do the wheel though (had done it last time anyway in the daytime)



Worlds smallest dodge-thems?





Bang in the middle of the Island place was one of the touristy-moonshine stores (like the couple I'd seen in Gatlinberg the day
before)

So the deal with this is, that they have (free) moonshine tasting 'experiences' going on all the time. You join one of these
groups, the barman/shop assistant checks your ID and then serves you - very rapidly - 15 or so shots of moonshine!



Not big shots, less than a 'single' but still, 15 of them, in about 20 minutes!



You are (quite reasonably) restricted to this once per person, but if you find a couple of these "stores" (like in Gatlinberg for
example) could be a very good way of breaking up a bar crawl! :)



The sales pitch would have worked on me - in that I would probably have bought a jug of the stuff had there not been logistical
issues getting it home (not convinced it would have survived in my luggage too well on the flight home).



All quite entertaining anyway, as was the fountain show that I could watch in my post-moonshine blur.





But wasn't drunk enough to do this thing that was opposite my hotel! :)



Next up, some mountains...
 
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davidm

Strata Poster
Nah, it's very good but as I said, didn't love it. I don't really do that 'top 10' business but it's in that top tier of stuff, but there's quite a few other things in that general area too.

Anyway, Nemesis is the best so not really sure I understand the question. ;)
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Thursday 6th October

So, seen as I didn't need to go back to Dollywood (and indeed I heard Lightning Rod was down again today) the plan was just to have a
nice trip through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park - I had very much enjoyed the random wanderings I'd had 12 months earlier around
a bunch of National Parks in the South West US so this seemed like a fine way to spend the day.

No coasters though for a couple of day, so will not inflict too many pics on you...

--

Dropped into a visitor center near Gatlinberg to pick up a map and get some guidance on what I could reasonably achieve in a day's
touring (had a hotel booked the other side of the National Park that evening, the idea being that that would get me headed in the
right direction for where I was originally planning to be for the next few days - but I'll come to all that in a bit...)

Anyway, the guide person at the visitor center said I should "do" a nature loop driving-route near Gatlinberg, then head up across the
mountains to 'Newfound Gap' which is the middle of the park, divert a bit to Clingmans Dome which is the high point of the mountain
range then head out via Cherokee to Asheville NC (where I was booked in for the night). So thats what I did...

The driving nature-loop thing was just outside Gatlinberg and was a mostly 1-way loop through the forest ; various stop-off for nature
trails and the like - significant historical buildings (or dilapidated shacks - take your pick) dotted the route too.



It lived up to the "nature trail" bit almost immediately though, barely 5 mins into the "loop" there was a couple of cars parked up ahead
at the side of the road so stopped to see what they were looking at, and there just off the road was a genuine wild black bear. Cool.



He was a little off the roadway and it didn't seem terribly advisable (or responsible!) to wander off into the woods to get a bit closer
to him, so all the picks are crap, but I was quite happy with my +1 wild bear for the day.



5 mins later around the trail there was another one just chilling in the woods too - common things. +2 Bears anyway.



Some significant historical buildings / dilapidated shacks - where the locals would have been living back in the olde-days anyway.



Route went proper one-way after a while ; closed in winter this bit too. A lot of trail head parking areas were all full of though, and
it not being high-season really could only image it gets pretty busy up here then.





Anyway, all very pleasant, if (after the fab bears) a little un-thrilling.



Back through Gatlinberg before heading into the National Park proper ; grabbed a pic of the Dukes-of-Hazzard place (owned/run by the
actor apparently) - that was Saturday night TV in my childhood, before all this singing/dancing rubbish the kids watch these days!



Another visitor center just into the park, helpful map;



Up at Newfound Gap there was a parking plaza and some views to be had;









And then you drive 7 miles up the mountain to Clingmans Dome, the high point of the mountains, where just to emphasise the point they
have then built an little observation tower as well





aaah, ruining a good view then...



Pigeon Forge in the (very distant) distance.



And its all very nice, but if I'm honest, a bit "meh" - certainly not on the wow-scale of many of the other US National Parks. Cannock
Chase with a few bigger hills (and the odd bear) I think. Harsh.



Heading out of the park there was a working, but olde-mill thing that was quite interesting








And to cap it off at the visitor center as you leave the park, there were a few wild Elk wandering around too, which was nice.



--

I did then drive past a coaster ; I exited the park via Cherokee and then through Maggie Valley - Cherokee has a little powered
dragon in "Santa's Land" that I saw as I drove past (did not stop!) but I didn't see any signs of the (defunct) Ghost Town in the Sky
at all as I drove through Maggie Valley.

I had a bit of a problem then - so I pondered this problem as I sat in my hotel in Asheville that evening. My plan was then to drive
down to the Georgia coast for the weekend and spend a couple of days chillaxing in and around Charleston/Savannah which were meant to be
nice chillaxing type towns. I had 2 nights booked in a hotel in downtown Savannah so I could dump car and just wander the city.

However, and this is the problem, there was this slight issue that HURRICANE MATTHEW was currently heading up the coast. The hotel I
had got booked was sat in the middle of the mandatory evacuation area in Savannah, and vast swathes of the population were heading inland
to get out of the way of the thing.

So a couple of days at the coast were not really going to happen were they! :)

In truth I had cancelled the hotel in Savannah the day before, but I still needed a plan for the next 2 days, so booked a couple of
random(ish) places on the way towards Florida figuring I could avoid the HURRICANE by driving "around it" in some manner...
 
Last edited:

davidm

Strata Poster
Friday 7th October

(... Still no coasters today, feel free to ignore this post then ;) ...)

So my hurricane avoiding plan was to head down the Western side of Georgia, away from the coast (back towards Atlanta really) which was all
sufficiently inland to only get the crap weather caused by the hurricane rather than the high winds / flooding etc.

I had booked a (reasonably posh!) hotel in downtown Athens, GA - somewhere I'd always been aware of as the home of R.E.M. a band I'd been
a somewhat fan of since my university days and had seen a few times through the years (first time was on the 'Green' tour, thats how long
ago I'm talking). Anyway Athens was meant to be a nice college town, figured I'd be able to have a few beers in the local bars and that
would do me.

Couple of hours drive through the rain (to be fair, today was the only bad weather I had in two weeks away) from where I started the day,
so that occupied the morning.



Spotted that there was the Georgia Museum of Art in the city too - so headed there to occupy an hour or so in the rain before finding my
hotel.





Museum wasn't that big though - what they had was OK though, some old stuff some modern stuff, nothing too poncy at either end of that
scale. Free entry and free parking though ; unusual for a US museum.



Checked into hotel mid afternoon and after a bit of R.E.M. on shuffle-play in the room for a while I was ready to find some nice local
beverages.

Wandered round the city centre for a while (in the rain) - was really nice, liked it a lot - laid back college place - lots of little
bars and eateries (catering to the students obviously - who else needs cookie-shops open 'til 3AM)

It was still afternoon, so place was quiet, but dived into AllGood Lounge (allegedly a good bar) for a random beer, which turned out to
be a Three Taverns Rapturous - and it was lovely stuff.



Sat at the bar, they had put a football (real football, not silly US football) match on the TV ; the USA were playing Cuba (away) in a
World Cup qualifier (I think?) - the pitch was like a freshly ploughed field so that was providing me with some amusement - no-one else
in the bar seemed to give a hoot about their national team though.

After about 20 mins they turned the football off in favour of a baseball match. FFS. I stormed out in protest (which was a shame as that
beer was lovely) but as I left the football was still on one TV, so sat where I could see that and ordered another beer! :)





USA won the match, no-one cared, I had some beers. AllGood then.

After some food wandered the town a bit more



And found the BEST BUILDING EVER;



Which if you need a better clue;



Made me laugh anyway! :)



Not really a big theatre though;



Board-game-goon-friendly bar; (how very hipster)



I'd seen on Google Maps that there was a local brewery in the town centre so headed there expecting a bar, but turned out that due to
some arcane local licensing laws, the place wasn't allowed to run a bar (since it was a brewery). They did however run brewery tours.
One of the tours was a self-guided sampling tour - i.e. a trip to the bar with some beer-tokens!

So I signed up for that self-guided-tour and sat in their bar for a while self-guiding my way through their selection. :)







The beer-tokens were in the form of a wristband with tear-off tabs ; each tab good for one beer (about 1/2 pint) - 6 tabs for $14 seemed
a good deal.



So all rather nice then - happy, slightly drunk Dave by now.



This was the place ; in a converted car garage place it seemed.



Town looked nice at night too, but wasn't really fit to appreciate any of that at the time.



So a good distraction of a day - just need to do the same sort of thing then next day and then I'll be back on plan and the hurricane
should have moved North by then.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Saturday 8th October

So I had a similar plan to the previous day for today - get up, drive to a random place I'd never been before (this time I'd booked a
hotel in Tallahassee since I'd never been there and it was almost on the way to Orlando) wander around a museum for a while and see
what the place was like. So no coasters planned for today either... or so I thought.

The hurricane was still an issue - I was driving South down the western side of Georgia, meanwhile the hurricane was travelling slowly
North up the eastern seaboard. Was rather surreal for a while, looking out of the right-side window of the car was nice blue skies
while looking out the left was some sort of weather-apocalypse.





Was heading right for it at some point - just when the road turned that way ; I was really headed south and around the edge of the thing.
You could see the thing turning even, the layers of clouds all circling slowly around. Really strange anyway.



Had been driving for a while, so stopped for some lunch near Perry in Georgia - just off the I75 anyway. Got back onto the interstate
and there was a bit of traffic getting off at the next junction so I glanced over to see if there was anything going on...

...and there was a fair - and I could see a cred (a wildcat) - oooohhhhh that was a unexpected. :)

Spent the next couple of miles thinking ; "shall I bother, just for a +1 wildcat" until I got to the next exit - figured I'd kick myself
if I didn't bother and so headed back North again.

Turned out it was the "Georgia National Fair" that I had just driven past ; and the thing was a massive agricultural show - the car
parking was miles away and stupid busy but eventually parked up and headed into the agricultural zone.



Obviously none of that is of any interest (and frankly a lot of it was quite unpleasant - pig racing, sad looking camel rides) and a lot
of farming equipment shows.

But they did have a a fair sized looking midway - I had spotted a wild mouse as well as the wildcat as I drove in so my random +1 was
at least a +2 by then (so I was happy at my detour by now!)



Pay as you go ticket job of course, not particularly cheap either - but what are you going to do?



Just into the midway there was a kiddie-cred too (+3 then - woo!)



Not-a-cred!



There was quite a lot of rides at the fair - decent selection to be honest - lots of flat spin'n'spew type things - was reasonably
impressed.



And then a flitzer appeared in amongst the flat rides (+4).



When I rode the spinning wild mouse, my car didn't spin ; I considered that a bonus.







I had never even seen one of these - didn't ride it though (no single riders, at least thats the excuse I'm using)



The wildcat was probably the best ride, but the flitzer wasn't bad either.



Definitely legit IP on the wildcat;



One of the best things about the wildcat was that next door to it was another cred (thats +5 then, and done)



POV!



So all the rides were from Reithoffer Shows, apparently they do a lot of the fairs up the East coast.



There was one fixed ride at the place, a fairly unexciting sky ride



So that was a very nice way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon, just wandering the midway and getting a few unexpected
creds in. Better than some dull-museum in Tallahassee anyway! :)

Headed on to Tallahassee for the night - didn't really explore the place apart from driving around to find my hotel, so would be a bit
unfair to say that there was nothing interesting there.

Burger place near the hotel was good though...





Back on plan tomorrow though - Orlando for the rest of the hols... :emoji_roller_coaster:
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Nice! Can't ever complain about a cheeky +5! :D
 

Bat Fastard

Hyper Poster
Awesome report. Loving all the pictures like always. Lightning Rod looks ****ing absolutely fantastic. I really, really hope it does not spite me when I go to Dollywood next month. That would ruin my whole year....
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Sunday 9th October

Not feeling the need to hang about in Tallahassee anymore than I had to, headed south again. Hurricane was sufficiently far North by now
to not be an issue anymore (several hurricane evacuees were checking out of the hotel I was in to go back home to the East coast).
A hurricane-bonus was that toll charges had been suspended on the toll-road heading into Orlando (few $ saved there then - big wow).

Headed straight for Fun Spot America then, the only new-to-me park on this trip (since the place had had no coasters on any of
my previous Orlando visits, it was just well off my radar)



Had wandered around the other Fun Spot in Kissimmee a couple of times before, and it was a bit unexciting really ; but I was quite
impressed by this place. Bigger than I had imagined I think and nice and clean and well-presented - good place to kill a few hours if you
couldn't face any of the big parks that day I think.



And of course, a +3 place for me. Yay!

First up was the intimidating Sea Serpent



Wooo.





Next up was the quite cool, family vekoma invert Freedom Flyer - if we can ignore the somewhat odd overly patriotic "freedom"
aspect (go-USA!) of its themeing, was a quite nice little ride. More interesting layout than the standard models of these anyway.









But the real reason to come here was the little woody White Lightning - I liked this a lot. Not much to it really, but a nice
re-ridable junior wood coaster. The sort of thing that would work well in any family park - can see why Plopsa have got a copy of it
then.













Didn't do too much more in the park after riding the two good coasters a few times, wandered around taking some snaps - they had a few
critters in a display too that was not too bad (always a bit wary of animals in amusement parks as entertainment to be honest).







I had booked a hotel for the week as near as I could get to Universal without paying stupid money to stay on-site (I've stayed at the
Hard Rock Hotel before and while it was very nice, not worth the price at all - maybe OK if you are just there for 1 or 2 days but not
a week). The hotel was actually only just the other side of the road to Fun Spot, but that road being the big interstate that runs
through Orlando meant it was a reasonable drive up and down to get across the road.

Checked in, chilled out for a bit then headed over to Universal for some of that Halloween Horror Nights :)

Was about 15mins walk from leaving the hotel to being in CityWalk - so that was nice. The only slow bit was crossing the big road
(Kirkman) to get onto Universal property - this pic is just after crossing the road, hotel to the left and Universal to the right - the
corner of the parking structure just out of shot to the right (the point I'm struggling to make being that you could park at Universal
and still only be 100 yards nearer the parks than my hotel - in fact I think some of the on-site hotels were actually further away
than I was)



Needed some food before heading into HHN (which wasn't open yet) so stopped at some posh sandwich place in CityWalk to fill up -
confused them by having a draft beer, which they then had run out of, so someone went to another place, got me my beer and brought
it back to the first place - good service that then.



I had got some multi-day+HHN ticket so I could have done this bit better ; but I ended up in the Q outside the park waiting for HHN to
start - what I could/should have done better was go into the park a bit earlier and then you are ahead of the Qs as they let the people
in the park into the Q lines before they open the main gates - never mind though.

So by the time they opened the gates and I had got in and found the first house (AHS) the Q was at 90 mins already.



I'd been to HHN here before (2012) and had done once night without express-pass and come back later with an express and the latter was
a much nicer experience. I was planning 2 nights at the event this time too then, express-less the first time to see if I needed to
express it the second time - very quickly decided that YES really need that express-pass for the next visit.

But this visit was express-less, and it was all a bit brutal - I didn't stop from opening at 6pm until 1am - either being in a Q or
in a house - thats all I did - beers taken in the Q line for sustenance and to try to deaden the pain of shuffling in line slowly for
many hours.

And not many pictures either - hadn't got the good camera with me so wasn't really trying to take any night-shots.

Houses were all good though, after skipping AHS (which was the first one you hit as you come into the park the entrance being beside
the path to the Blue Man Group near Despicable Me) the first house I hit was The Exorcist which was advertised as
only a 15min Q.

Was pretty atmospheric - you entered via the house from the movie and lots of Tubular Bells and spooky movie-soundbites going on which
I liked a lot. The house itself suffered as the movie is pretty much set in one room ; so that one location was repeated time after time
and that was a bit lame - think it was 5 times you were walking past effectively the same scene. But I liked the atmosphere and feel
of the thing.

Next up was one of the non-IP houses Ghost Town: The Curse of Lightning Gulch. The previous time I'd been here, the
non-IP houses were perhaps the best ones - not restricted by having to follow a familiar story they had more interesting plots to
them I think. And this one was good too - fairly generic theme of spooky western ghost town and the like, but was a big house with a
few large set-piece scenes - shoot outs between ghost cowboys and such.

Qs had built up by now and the next house was The Walking Dead, which had a bit of a Q :(



At least the Q got some non-normal views of the coaster to look at;



Had done the "original" Walking Dead house here in 2012 and really liked it - and done the 2015 version at Hollywood last year, and this
one would be the 5th year straight that they had a WD house - kinda think it might be getting a bit repetitive? To emphasise that, this
year's house wasn't themed to a season of the show (apparently all the ones were - including the 2 I had done) but to "all the seasons".
That meant that there were a lot of scenes that were just the main setting hospital - farmhouse - prison etc ; probably just a cheap
rehash of the previously used sets / shocks even. It was alright though, sets were good, all just a bit familiar.

Carried on around the park, didn't even pause to look at the new-to-me Harry Potter bit.

Next house had an advertised 45min Q and was the one themed to the event's main character Chance ; Lunatics Playground 3D: You Won't Stand a Chance.
This was the 3D one - in that you wore Chromadepth glasses for it and that makes the weird paint that they use give the illusion of
an odd depth to it - just a very strange effect. The house was themed to a lunatic asylum that the inmates were taking over (lead by
that Chance character) - lots of scenes of the nurses/guards being dismembered by the inmates - all in very questionable taste of
course. The one standout effect though was just as you entered the house, they has one of those revolving tunnel walkthru things going on
which can be a bit disorientating at the best of times, but loaded up with the Chromadepth paint and stuff was just extra-weird - felt
myself falling over a number of times - anyway, very cool (even if the rest of the house was a bit rubbish).

That one ^ was between the old wild-west show and MenInBlack, the next one was the other side of MIB and I was quite looking forward
to this, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This was a tent-maze (universal has a couple of big tents they use for HHN
and this was one of them) previous trip here I thought that these tent-houses were the weakest ones, but this one was very good I
thought - had to Q for over an hour though, ugh.

Crap pic of the house façade that you went through to enter the tent - looked a lot better than this for real honestly!



Started off in this really detailed front room of the house, lots of good decorations that you might not notice if you were just trekking
through, but all little things made of flesh, just like in the movie. In all quickly went to hell though as leatherface starts appearing
everywhere - some very good little scenes played out ; one was good where a teen-victim pops out of a doorway with as a quick scare,
but once you dismissed that, a few moments later leatherface pops up and dispatches the teen - cool. House boils down to wandering
through the place with leatherface popping out all over the place - but well done. As you exit the house its still not over though -
there were several leatherfaces hiding outside as you walked away from the tent, jumping out at the punters who thought it was over.
Nice touch that ; and the one caught a excitable group ahead of me quite well so much that one of the group fell over the fence next to
the pathway and that leatherface had to stop and break character to help rescue him. :)

Next up there were 2 houses accessed near the kiddie-area - first was Halloween: Hell Comes To Haddonfield (or
Halloween II, I'm not really sure). Had done a Halloween themed house last year in Hollywood and it was very good, so was looking
forward to this one, which followed the plot of the movie and picked up right where the previous house/movie ended with the detective
shooting Michael Myers.



Really liked this one (another hour Q though) - again very repetitive like the TCM one, basically one baddie jumping out in scene after
scene, but was pretty amusing - and a few scenes I really remembered from the movie (and its got to be 30 years since I saw that movie).

The other house accessed from here was Tomb of the Ancients, the other non-IP house and in the other tent next to TCM.
Only a short (well relatively short) 30min Q for this one though - not the pulling power of the IP-lead houses perhaps. This was all
about some ancient temple and evil spirits and so on - not really sure to be honest, was a bit forgettable and seemed the shortest of
the houses (this could just be my dodgy memory though).



Next up another horrible (45min) Q for Krampus - which was sort of in/behind the Shrek building. I had not seen this
movie so was not really sure of the IP (notice its just popped up on Sky at the moment though) apart from evil Xmas stuff of some sort.
The house was just walking through a suburban house being attacked my evil things from the movie (I assume). Few neat tricks - a Krampus
up on the roof was good, but nothing really stood out in this one.

OK thats 8 or the 9 houses done - by now its midnight and I'm really dead on my feet. However I've not done the "big" one yet and
despite the sign saying 120min Q I head into American Horror Story - Q winds around past the back of Despicable Me
and RipRideRocket and deposits you in a soundstage, which is just one huge Q shuffling back and forth.



Eventually I get into the house - was an hour rather than 2, I consider that a win.

Was the best house though - the biggest, themed after 3 different seasons of the show, each one of which could have been a house on its
own to be honest. Lots of characters from the show - really well done, lots of scenes - walking through the Freak Show tents bit was
particularly awesome I thought.



Really liked that one, easily my favourite of the night. But as I said earlier, literally all I'd done was Q and walk through the houses
and it had taken me all night; if you wanted to do anything else (shows, rides, eat) you were going to miss out on some houses it was
that busy (and this was a supposedly quieter Sunday night, can't imagine a Saturday here, ugh).







Dead by now I just shuffled back to hotel. Good day though. :)
 
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davidm

Strata Poster
Monday 10th October



I used to quite like Seaworld parks, but have kinda gone off them over the years I think ; last years visit to the Texan one was a bit
m'eh and the last one before that was SanDiego 5 years ago - had been 2010 since I'd been to Orlando's though and that was only because
they'd got a new B&M back then. Well they had another new B&M for me this time which I did like the look of and that was of course all
the reason I needed (absolutely would not have come here if that wasn't here).

So obviously straight to the new ride Mako a rather splendid looking big B&M hyper.



Little to no Q (nice change from last night) meant I could cycle it for a while, just having to walk around the Q line - happy goon then.

Really liked the station, the ceiling had all these animated fish milling around and they had a efficient looking restraint check screen
to aid their despatches (not that they needed to be rushing today)





When the train was despatched, the fishes on the ceiling all changed colour and start moving in the same forward direction - all very cool.



Anyway the ride - really good. Very fast, nice up and down bits - and the much-complained of trim brake was either not on or just
toned down as it really took me a few rides to understand even where it was. I do like these big B&M hypers - I guess the problem
really is only that theres a bunch of them now and while all the layouts are a bit different, the ride isn't that much different
to others (Nitros,Intimidators,Goliaths,Apollos,etc). Good thing its a good ride though, best coaster in Orlando now then.





Exit path gave some new views on Kraken too;









Having had my fill of Mako for a while (I'll be back later) I have a go on some other attractions. Next up Manta, their nice flyer.







Which is a good ride too - even if it does have one of those nasty pretzels. Better than Superman at Georgia the week before anyway due
to a much more interesting layout. The fake water-splash is still cool too.



Did a lap on the water coaster Journey to Atlantis, kid on row behind me was crying his way all through it too - lightweight.



The park's other B&M (gotta like anywhere with three B&Ms really haven't you)is Kraken - rather saddened to hear that they are
VR-ing it soon, so happy to get some un-polluted rides in today.





Was running a bit smoother than I remembered it from my last visit - considering Universal have been rebuilding their similar aged
Hulk recently this seemed in good condition - I used to think that this was Orlando's best coaster but its lost that to its new
neighbour for sure now.



New since my last visit was some ride thing I know little about, Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin. Anyway it was shut. Well the ride
bit of it was down for annual maintenance, the area was still open and you could walk through the ride to see the penguins (without
getting on the ride obviously).





Down then;





Bit odd then this - clearly a lot of money gone into the area and I assume the ride itself, similar I guess to Wild Arctic ; do a ride
and end up at the animals - Seaworld reducing their animals to glorified themeing then?



Wandered around the park for a bit, didn't do any of the shows at all though, seen them before and clearly I had little enthusiasm for
seeing them again that day



Sharks are nice though;





Found myself at the other side of the park, I did courtesy-ride the kiddie-cred Shamu Express (the shame of it)



The last time I was here was nearer Xmas, so this was setup as Polar Express, and I think the previous time I had been here before that
I skipped the ride because of Qs (and just walked thru the shop/exit to get to the Beluga whales). So I did ave ago on this somewhat
ageing simulator ride - not great.



Good view across the lake of the beemers though (even if day was a bit overcast, will have to have a play to see if I can get any
'good' results out of any of these shots)





I went back to Mako for a few more rides, and Manta too but wasn't really feeling the need to hang around too much more now my goony
new B&M enthusiasm had worn off.





Headed over to the nearby Disney Springs to see what had been going one there - a lot of rebuilding since my last Orlando trip when I
had spent some time at a hotel across the road from the place.

Lots of work had been done in building new shops, new parking structures and a new flyover access off I4 (which made getting into the
parking area much easier than it used to be), but seemed a lot of work still to be done





There were new walkways over the roads too - this was good as having stayed at 3 of the local hotels in the past it seemed a little
badly planned that you still had to cross many lanes of heavy traffic to get to the area from the hotels.



Bit early with their Rogue One tat perhaps?



Most of the expansion of the place seemed to be "posh shops" though, making it feel a bit more like upmarket shopping mall with
restaurants attached than an evening destination with a few shops attached. Sure they know what they are doing though and sure those
shop-rents aren't cheap either.





This was new - Indiana Jones themed bar - thought I could get some food there but it was more snacks, and the bar was a lot smaller than
I had imagined...





...so I ended up at some other restaurant place people watching instead.



So wasn't very impressed by the new Disney Springs to be honest - was nice enough, but all a bit bland and shop-overload I think.
Anyway sure I'd be back, especially if I were doing Disney stuff here ever again - but for this trip, that was the only Disney stuff that I did.



Not so quick wander around the nearby outlet shops in the evening and I was done for the day. Next up will go and have a look at that
Potter-stuff that I had ignored the previous evening. :)

--

Heres some silly processed pics (multiple images stitched together)


 
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witchfinder

Hyper Poster
Great reports and pics, as ever. :)

Which hotel did you stay in near Universal? I'm looking for a reasonably-priced option for 2018 so interested to know what yours was like...
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Which hotel did you stay in near Universal?
"Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Across From Universal Orlando"
Wasn't exactly cheap, just was a lot cheaper than the on-site ones and only a bit further walk (and without the "perks" of course). Stayed in much cheaper tat on I-Drive before now, but less "convenient".
HInn was fine, breakfast was crap but apart from that no complaints - there is a Hilton opposite it and a Hyatt and a Clarion just on the same road.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Tuesday 11th October

Having completely ignored Harry Potter World II the other night at HHN, I headed over to the Studios this morning - after possibly the
worst hotel breakfast experience for ages ; [ hotel didn't have a restaurant/breakfast area (despite lots of generic Holiday Inn signs
advertising food), but was attached to a TGIFriday's ; the idea being you got your breakfast there. So more expensive to start with
but thought I'd give it a go - surly disinterested greeter dumps me at a table, help myself to buffet and theres no sign of any serving
staff so help myself to coffee, then the server turns up and almost chastises me for helping myself to get coffee - buffet food was
expensive and drinks extra, ended up being $20 for a lack lustre experience with poor service. Didn't go back then! ]

Need to get the "cred" though, so headed towards Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts - didn't take the SRQ as I wanted to
walk through the Q - which was really very good...





After you walk through the main bank room (with cool animatronic clerks) end up in a corridor thingy where they take you picture for
later ORP opportunities and then theres a couple of pre-show things ; a pepper's ghost thing with a couple of actors from Star Wars
in it (yeah really, obviously in their Potter-characters though) and a faux-elevator-thing.





The pepper's ghost bit was OK, but the elevator was a bit crap (room was too big for a start).



But the loading area was really good ; spiral staircase into a cave area the you get batched onto your "trains" and off you go.



Ride was a bit "meh" though if you think its going to be a coaster ; theres a coaster-y bit at the start but after that its all just
expensive dark-ride. Well down expensive-dark-ride though - trains spin around and the 3D video screens all are well done, just
all not as epic as Forbidden Journey was when that was new.



The building its in is rather good though.



After a quick SRQ re-ride I have a look around the potter-area.











And its all rather well done - I'm on record somewhere saying that bit in the middle of DisneySea is the best themed area I've seen,
but this is better - much better. Attention to detail and the amount of stuff is really impressive (might be even more impressive if
you were "into" the theme itself, which I'm not really)









London landmarks in Orlando as well.





Very weird was the concept of a London train station being an attraction in a theme park though.



Ok so it was Potter-ed up a lot, but still, London train stations aren't really the most magical places.





Train ride itself was well done (and a bit more interesting than the Virgin Trains line I usually get to London) - steam trains
(even fake ones) are pretty cool.





Train takes you to the other park of course, site of the latest Svalbard T-Shirt (except that one was Japan's)



Decide I'd like to go through the full Q for the other Potter ride (think I'd only ever done the full Q once before)







And yeah, thats a lot better than the Gringotts ride I think.

Ruining a good shot of the thing then,



Jurassic Park-annexe to Hogwarts?





The other "new to me" thing here was the recently opened Kong ride, so I suck up the 60min Q and do that. The Q is pretty good, very
dark, lots of skulls, a few scare actors jumping out at you...





...big temple area mid Q with a complex animatronic priestess person doing all the chanting and stuff - only problem is that the room
is so big that you walk through it 2 or 3 times as long as the programmed "effects loop", which could be better!



Just before boarding theres some curiosities in the Q line too - this thing moves around and was pretty cool;





Ride itself was OK - again very well done but having just ridden the Gringotts thing, pretty similar to that, in that you are just
in a vehicle driving though a bunch of 3D video screens. Effects were good, the big entrance into the area was impressive, videos were
good and stuff going on on both sides of the vehicle (and they are BIG vehicles). The big animatronic at the end was impressive, but I
was sitting on the wrong side to see much of it (you want to be on the right).

So yeah, looked expensive, was good but not great.



Spite-cred;



Wandered round the park for a bit, got some lunch, rode the odd thing but been here a lot in the past so wasn't too bothered to do much.





"Needed" to do "new Hulk" of course, but it was down for some reason...



...so carried on around and had a couple of pity-rides on the coasters they've shoe-horned into the Potter-verse.







Go to get the train back to the other park (different train experiences in each direction) and an odd-thought occurs to me as I'm
wandering though the Hogsmeade train station ; my sister lives in an old converted train station, the station was (before they moved
in) location-scouted as a location for the Hogsmeade train station in the first movie - so in a slightly different universe I could
well have been about to ride a theme-park ride, themed after my sister's house. Weird.



But obviously her house was not used in the movie, so that didn't happen.

Gets a bit close to the B&Ms too.





Back in the studios, hadn't ridden this (had one ride on USH's version last year) so give that a go - very loud, very brash, more
energetic than Spidey and was pretty popular (reasonable Q even in the SRQ line).



Mummy is much better though, and even if the video sections are ageing a bit, a fun ride.



Not much to see at the 2 "future attraction" sites;

Some poor sounding Jimmy Fallon ride spited Twister (which was itself old and tired so fair enough)



And less completed, Faff and Furious ride - which looked like a rather large installation;



But neither of these IPs / rides have sounded interesting to me, so don't think they will be a reason to come back here for a while.

A lot of stuff had been built in the Simpsons area since I'd last been here so had a quick look at that - was really well done too





But this I will miss when they inevitably remove it;





Have managed to spend most of the day just wandering around the parks without seemingly done too much - which is fine, sign of quite
a relaxed "day at the park(s)" I think. Head out to CityWalk for some food, the new restaurant thingy had not been open very long
and was huge-busy / long wait for a table, but I could just go straight to the bar in there and order food anyway - so did that!







Pretty cool themeing in the place - and the food (and the beer) was good - liked it then. Never went in the old basketball cafe that
used to be in the building, but this seemed like a winner.





So nice enough "catch up with Universal" kinda-day then. More of the same tomorrow though...
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Nice update. I do really like the idea of heading back to Orlando - a lot has been added since my visit back in 2006! :p You report is inspiring me to go back!

Maybe something I'll consider for my next USA trip.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
^ I've only been 4 times since 2006! ;)
Its always very easy (i.e. basic), but there seems always lots to do (or lots of ways of extracting $$$ from you).
Not sure I'd go back for a few years without something good to draw me (HHN counts as good).
 
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