AJ, Conor, Jordan, Peter, Rach, Richard and I had planned to go on a goony adventure across about 8 states of North America. Over 100 rollercoasters were plotted out and before we knew it our adventure began....
Saturday 7th June
Coming from all over the place we had arranged to meet at Heathrow Terminal 2 at a silly time in the morning. We managed to all make it around the same time which was nice (I do love it when a plan comes together). We proceeded to make our way through security and whatnot and made our way on to the plane a couple of hours later. A non-eventful flight across the Ocean later and we touched down in Houston, Texas.
Mornings are not Richard's best friend
Goodbye gloomy clouds and hello to obscene heat and occasional storms....
Getting through security was easy, well apart from Conor who still had a minor complication on his previous paperwork because the US peeps can't sort their lives out. This meant he had to join a 90 minute queue just for a guy to pretty much say ok and send him back out. This delayed us by quite a bit (obviously) but no harm was done and we went on our merry way. We split into our two groups and headed to the first port of call, Galveston Pier.
A good sign that we were in fact in America
All US cities look the same
We drove past this truck which had 5 teens and a dog sitting in the back. Wtf?
It would appier we made it to the pier.
We met back up at the entrance to the pier where we proceeded to make our very expensive pier wristband purchases. The place felt like a bigger Brighton Pier (despite their being less creds).
I wanted to ride this but time was short and it was expensive
Time for cred #1
So it was finally time to get on our first rollercoaster of the trip. Iron Shark was ok, the lapbars definitely provided a different experience on the Gerts. Overall it was all over pretty quickly and I came off feeling rather meh about it. As we got off it had broken down so we only just made it on to the ride before it died for the day.
We were just happy to have obtained a +1 to the count. So we quickly made our way onwards to cred #2.
The log flume was nicely themed
Was so annoyed that we had to skip this. A Rainforest Cafe with a RIDE!
Anyways it was back to the cars and over to Kemah Boardwalk. The sun was starting to set as we arrived and due to rubbish operations it was night by the time we boarded the Boardwalk Bullet. The wait for the ride was tedious, the staff just didn't seem to care about the long wait they had created due to their Mingoland style operations.
Still the ride looked great and it was finally time for us to take a turn. I had never actually heard of this ride before our trip, I now have no idea why, it's definitely one of the best wooden rollercoasters I've ever ridden. It was seriously insane and absolutely relentless. It was just so fast and kept going on and on twisting and diving around the rest of the structure and track. I really loved it.
We then headed over to Bubba Gump for some food. I'd heard lots of good things from Jordan about this place and AJ had a card which got us straight in. The restaurant was full of references to Forest Gump (a film I've never seen) but it was nice. Our waitress was nice, clearly new, and had the ordeal of having to deal with us lot. I had a cocktail which came in an awesome jar thing and was very tasty. Unfortunately everyone had a problem with the food. Firstly it took forever to come out and when it did most of it was cold (apart from my burger which I ate). The manager was called and was very apologetic. At least we talked to him in a calm and reasonable manner, the lady behind us had the same problem but reacted in a way which isn't going to go down well. It was a sour note on a very mixed day.
It was then back in the car and to our first hotel where we slept really well after such a long day.
Saturday 7th June
Coming from all over the place we had arranged to meet at Heathrow Terminal 2 at a silly time in the morning. We managed to all make it around the same time which was nice (I do love it when a plan comes together). We proceeded to make our way through security and whatnot and made our way on to the plane a couple of hours later. A non-eventful flight across the Ocean later and we touched down in Houston, Texas.
Mornings are not Richard's best friend
Goodbye gloomy clouds and hello to obscene heat and occasional storms....
Getting through security was easy, well apart from Conor who still had a minor complication on his previous paperwork because the US peeps can't sort their lives out. This meant he had to join a 90 minute queue just for a guy to pretty much say ok and send him back out. This delayed us by quite a bit (obviously) but no harm was done and we went on our merry way. We split into our two groups and headed to the first port of call, Galveston Pier.
A good sign that we were in fact in America
All US cities look the same
We drove past this truck which had 5 teens and a dog sitting in the back. Wtf?
It would appier we made it to the pier.
We met back up at the entrance to the pier where we proceeded to make our very expensive pier wristband purchases. The place felt like a bigger Brighton Pier (despite their being less creds).
I wanted to ride this but time was short and it was expensive
Time for cred #1
So it was finally time to get on our first rollercoaster of the trip. Iron Shark was ok, the lapbars definitely provided a different experience on the Gerts. Overall it was all over pretty quickly and I came off feeling rather meh about it. As we got off it had broken down so we only just made it on to the ride before it died for the day.
We were just happy to have obtained a +1 to the count. So we quickly made our way onwards to cred #2.
The log flume was nicely themed
Was so annoyed that we had to skip this. A Rainforest Cafe with a RIDE!
Anyways it was back to the cars and over to Kemah Boardwalk. The sun was starting to set as we arrived and due to rubbish operations it was night by the time we boarded the Boardwalk Bullet. The wait for the ride was tedious, the staff just didn't seem to care about the long wait they had created due to their Mingoland style operations.
Still the ride looked great and it was finally time for us to take a turn. I had never actually heard of this ride before our trip, I now have no idea why, it's definitely one of the best wooden rollercoasters I've ever ridden. It was seriously insane and absolutely relentless. It was just so fast and kept going on and on twisting and diving around the rest of the structure and track. I really loved it.
We then headed over to Bubba Gump for some food. I'd heard lots of good things from Jordan about this place and AJ had a card which got us straight in. The restaurant was full of references to Forest Gump (a film I've never seen) but it was nice. Our waitress was nice, clearly new, and had the ordeal of having to deal with us lot. I had a cocktail which came in an awesome jar thing and was very tasty. Unfortunately everyone had a problem with the food. Firstly it took forever to come out and when it did most of it was cold (apart from my burger which I ate). The manager was called and was very apologetic. At least we talked to him in a calm and reasonable manner, the lady behind us had the same problem but reacted in a way which isn't going to go down well. It was a sour note on a very mixed day.
It was then back in the car and to our first hotel where we slept really well after such a long day.