Highlights of your 2014 Season

[Jarrett]

With Labor Day weekend upon us, summer is generally regarded as over, and soon, so will be the 2014 season. As sad as that is, we have a lovely 2015 upon us and while some of us are already twitching with excitement to hop on Fury 325 (and I'm just as guilty as the next guy, I'll fully admit to that), I think it's important to reminisce on a great five? months gone by (or however long your season was) and do what we can to remember another year in the life of the hobby.

I posted a thread for the 2013 season last year and it was a lot of fun, so I thought I'd make a slightly bigger thread for 2014. More categories, more opportunities to flesh out what this season meant to you, and just generally more to talk about. Obviously these are just suggestions for stuff you could throw down and if you want to add/omit anything as you feel meaningful, you are more than welcome to. This year, I'd also like to open up the suggestion that you all add in an honorable mentions, since last year I felt I couldn't cover a lot of the fun and craziness that went down on my trips because some of those moments weren't THE most fun or crazy. So yeah, throw in some honorable mentions! That's that, without further ado, here's the criteria for 2014 highlights!

IN PARK: Everything that happened while actively practicing the hobby; post a main answer and a few honorable mentions with the following and explain them briefly.
Best New Cred
Worst New Cred
Most Surprising New Cred
Nastiest Spiting Experience
Best Individual Ride
Worst Individual Ride
Craziest Park Experience
Scariest Moment
Best Park Visit
Worst Park Visit
Overall Favorite Trip (Trip = Time between leaving and returning home)

OUT OF PARK: All regarding things that happened on travel to/around creds but not while actively being a goon; post a main answer and a few honorable mentions with the following and explain them brieflyl.
Best Leadup Event (best events that happened in the days/weeks leading up to the trip)
Most Suspenseful Moment (When was everything just leading up to something so huge you couldn't take the wait?)
Funniest Moment Outside a Park
Coolest Travel Moment
Biggest Travel Nightmare
Funniest Travel Moment
Best Cultural Experience (this cultural experience had to have been a sort of sidetrack from credding)

FAVORITE CFER MOMENTS:
*List all the CFers you met in person, their username, and your favorite moment involving them from the season.
*Any significant moments, whether they be funny, exciting, or just flat out weird, that went down with other CFers by means other than personal contact. On the forums, over Skype, on Facebook, while smoke signalling them, anything!

BEST PEOPLE:
Post the top three best people (that aren't CFers) that you encountered while experiencing the hobby.

WORST PEOPLE:
Post the top three worst people (that aren't CFers) that you encountered while experiencing the hobby.

PHOTO LOOKBACK:
Post any photos you feel were key in reflecting your season but with minimal captioning. Just say what the picture is, especially if it relates to a major highlight.

MILESTONES:
Post any major things that happened to you during the duration of the season. Get your something-hundred-fiftieth cred? Brave your first drop tower? First time flying Transatlantic? Let the world know!

I should be posting mine here soon. As far as I know all I have left in my season is three individual trips (one on Monday), one new cred, and seeing one more CFer in person that I've already met, so there isn't much left in my season and even if these three trips are absolutely nuts, it shouldn't affect what I have now much. So yeah, post away and let the nostalgia flow!

 

[BBH]

In Park
Best New Cred - Goliath, SFGAm
Worst New Cred - Cobra, Zoomer's (One of two creds this year)
Most Surprising New Cred - Cobra, Zoomer's (I didn't expect it)
Nastiest Spiting Experience - Goliath opening a month late
Best Individual Ride - Goliath, row 2
Worst Individual Ride - Dark Knight, back row
Craziest Park Experience - Being alone in an outdoor FEC in Florida
Scariest Moment - Being alone in an outdoor FEC in Florida
Best Park Visit - SFGAm w/ my school
Worst Park Visit - SFGAm on 31 July
Overall Favorite Trip - Florida on Spring Break

Out of Park
Best Leadup Event - Being in Florida
Most Suspenseful Moment - Waiting to see if a ride op would actually give me a ride on Cobra
Funniest Moment Outside a Park - Driving down the highway on our way to the beach, looking to my left, seeing Cobra, and yelling "CREDIT! CREDIT! CREDIT! CREDIT!" as loud as I could
Coolest Travel Moment - Getting free Coke on my flights
Biggest Travel Nightmare - Forgetting my age at the airport security check-in line at O'Hare
Funniest Travel Moment - See above
Best Cultural Experience - Edison/Ford estate in Florida

Favorite CFer Moments
Talking to Jarrett over Skype.
"So..."
"So..."
"So. The world's. Biggest. Goon."

Best People
- The lovely enthusiasts in V2's queue line who I soon after rode Batman with.
- The poor ride op who had to put up with my goon-ness on Cobra.
- Not a good person (but so freakin' funny) but when I handed my empty Z-card over at Zoomer's, the morbidly obese woman behind the desk said, "y'ain't got no tickets on here."

Worst People
- The piece of human **** SF worker who teased me because I was at the park with a female friend.
- The Johnny Rocket's workers at SFGAm who took half an hour to get my order.
- The Giant Drop ride op who wouldn't shut up about going 62 mph.

Photo Lookback

All of the following are me on Cobra:













Milestones:
- First drop tower. (Loved it)
- Started high school. (Reviews are mixed)

 

[Hobbes]

I'm not going to fill in every category, but my year definitely had some highlights.

Best New Cred - Apollo's Chariot, honorable mentions to Griffon and White Lightning

Worst New Cred - Flying Ace Aerial Chase at Carowinds was just vile

Most Surprising Cred - not actually a new cred, but I actually really enjoyed Nighthawk this time around. It was just such a weird experience, I found it really fun (and preferred it to S:UF). Honorable mentions to Verbolten (I forgot about the drop track) and the mine train at SFGAdv (not mind-blowing, but I definitely enjoyed it more than the average mine train)

Nastiest Spite - Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom (although I knew ahead of time it would be down for maintenance). That was the only spite I can think of off the top of my head, so I guess I should consider myself lucky this year.

Best Individual Ride - I honestly can't think of one particular ride that blew me away this year, but I guess El Toro back row should be mentioned as it keeps Toro safely in my #2 spot. Apollo in the front row was also great, as it turned around my opinion on the ride (didn't care for it in the back).

Worst Individual Ride - First ride on Flying Ace at Carowinds (Yes, I rode it twice...I was forced to ride a second time because my little brother wanted to go on). The roughness caught me completely off-guard.

Best Park Visit - BGW. It had both great rides and theming, and is my second favorite park after IoA.

Worst Park Visit - I went to quite a few parks this year (all 4 WDW, Fun Spot, BGW, Carowinds, SFGAdv, Quassy (and prob Compounce this fall)), and honestly none of them stood out as poor visits. I suppose the park I was least impressed with was Hollywood studios. Nothing outside of Tower of Terror really impressed me, and the theming/immersion didn't seem as good as the other Disney parks. I didn't dislike it really, but if I had to pick a least favorite, I suppose that would be it.

Overall Favorite Trip - It's a tough call between spring break (several days of BGW and colonial Williamsburg) and my main summer vacation (two weeks of seeimg family in North Carolina and Georgia that included Carowinds). Obviously the Williamsburg trip had the more impressive park, but it's nice to see family as well.

Nice People - Somehow my dad managed to befriend the guy working the cash register in a food court at BGW. We talked for a few minutes. I have no recollection of what the conversation was, but I remember him being a nice guy.
Other than that, there's really just the occasional comments/brief conversations about my t-shirts (I wear a lot of ride shirts, which results in questions about where it's from or conversations with people who have been to that park as well).

Not-So-Nice People - Obviously there's the occasional slow ride ops or loud annoying kids, but nobody really sticks out in my memory as being particularly rude, at least not directly to me.


Random Milestones:

First Gravity Group coaster
First Zierer Coaster
Rode tallest drop tower
Rode tallest complete-circuit invert

16 new credits
2 new parks

 

[Chris Coasters]

Best New Cred - El Toro with mentions to Nitro, Apollos Chariot, and Griffon.
Worst New Cred - Rebel Yell or Shockwave- Kings Dominion
Most Surprising New Cred - Tons of ones in many different ways. El Toro, Kingda Ka, Nitro, Apollos Chariot, Alpengeist, Griffon, I305, Volcano, etc.
Nastiest Spiting Experience - The horrible coaster called Dragon at Ocean Beach Park. Spited three times.
Best Individual Ride- El Toro with mentions to Apollo, Verbolten, and Griffon.
Worst Individual Ride - Once again Shockwave or Rebel Yell
Craziest Park Experience-Busch and KD Trip
Scariest Moment - Near spites.
Best Park Visit - Busch Gardens Williamsburg so flawless.
Worst Park Visit - I didn't really have a bad visit to a park this year.
Overall Favorite Trip - Virginia Trip.

Most suspenseful moment - Not knowing if I would get everything at KD because of the weather.
Funniest Moment Outside of a Park - Driving to Great Adventure, Virginia, and random shenangians in Jersey.
Coolest Travel Moment - Driving through DC and seeing the sights and the pentagon.
Biggest Travel Nightmare - Weather spite.
Funniest Travel Moment - Singing random songs with my friend Ben in the style of a kid we went to school with.

Favorite CFer moment was my only moment when my friends and I met Bmac and got to chat about Great Adventure.

Best People - Wooden Warrior Ride Op - Jim Sr. The guy from Atlantic Beach Park who let us on the kiddie cred. and a bunch of great people we waited in line with for Kingda Ka.

Worst People - Mean carnies who rejected us on a go gator, the douchey ride ops on Green Lantern.

Milestones
100th Coaster - El Toro
First Bobsled - Avalanche - KD
First Dive Coaster - Griffon
First Togo - Shockwave
First Legit Flying coaster(not a volare) - Superman Ultimate Flight - Great Adventure
First B&M Hyper - Nitro
First Alpine Coaster - Cranmore Mountain Coaster

Overall I had a great year. I visited 2 parks I have been wanting to visit since I got into coasters (BGW and Six Flags Great Adventure) I got some new favorite coasters including my new number 1 El Toro. I finally got to ride I305, Kingda Ka, Volcano, Wooden Warrior, and Roar-O-Saurus. I had a couple great road trips, and missed my most creds in a year by a handful of coasters. Had so many great memories and fun times with my pals on the road. Ben and I are planning a couple trips one is a massive florida trip, the next is a New Hampshire cred mop up, as well as opening day for Wicked Cyclone which I would love to attend. 2015 looks like it will turn out great year!

 

[ECG]

Not even Halloween yet and this topic has already been started? Still a lot to do before I can start talking about the year I had.

 

[CanobieFan]

Uh... lets see.

Best New Cred - Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion, I wish I could have ridden it in its prime... but I still really liked it.

Worst New Cred - Verbolten at Busch Gardens... so stupid, so dumb.

Most Surprising New Cred - The Smiler at Alton, shocked it didn't absolutely suck and surprised it was pretty fun!

Nastiest Spiting Experience - Adventure Island Southend, the whole park closed 3 hours early and I only got 3 of the 5 credits (missing RAGE along the way)

Best Individual Ride - taking Vertigo for a ride at Tivoli (in the backwards extreme mode <3)

Worst Individual Ride - Nemesis: Sub-Terra at Alton* ...It wasn't really that bad... but it should have been so much more.

Craziest Park Experience - I guess Flying from London to Copenhagen, getting on a train, and than walking to Bakken.. running around the whole park being sure to ride everything and then walking back down to the train station (by way of a trip to the Baltic Sea where I watched a man strip down naked and jump in!)

Scariest Moment - While I was in Iceland Icelandair had a strike and canceled all their flights for a 24 hour period and my flight to London was 15 minutes after the strike was set to end... but no guarantee that the flight would even be departing. Kind of upsetting, I guess.

Best Park Visit - Tivoli Gardens! making it to Tivoli after years of day dreaming was pretty amazing

Worst Park Visit - again, Adventure Island Southend, the whole park closed 3 hours early and I only got 3 of the 5 credits (missing RAGE along the way)

Overall Favorite Trip (Trip = Time between leaving and returning home) - Orlando FL to Boston MA to Reykjavík Iceland to London England to Copenhagen Denmark to London England to Reykjavík Iceland to Boston MA to Washington DC to Atlanta GA to Orlando FL... all on the same amazing trip!

Random photos and stuff?

Looping Rocket Star Flyer thing!!

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train finally opened.

The Smiler surprisingly didn't suck!

The wonderful Tivoli Gardens

 

[Jason Voorhees]

Universal, IOA, and SeaWorld as new parks.
First Big Pretzel Loop.
Butterbeer.
Three Broomsticks.

Biggest Scare: Almost not being able to get on Pteranadon Flyers.

 

[CookieCoasters]

So far..

Best New Cred: Intimidator 305, Kings Dominion with honourable mentions to El Toro, Monster, Phoenix and Helix

Worst New Cred: Goliath, SFNE with honourable mentions to the Anaconda's (at KD and Waly), Shockwave at KD and Kingda Ka

Most Surprising New Cred: Talon, Dorney Park with honourable mentions to Great Bear, Fahrenheit, Monster, Steel Force, Bizarro at SFGadv, Sky Scream etc (lot's of quite surprising ones and hard to choose between them)

Nastiest Spiting Experience: Stinger, Dorney Park (knew it would be closed and not really dissapointed)

Craziest Park Experience: Chiapas being open before the park and getting 4 rides on it without getting off.

Scariest Moment: Queueing for Mystery Castle at Phantasialand (I hate 'scary' queue lines) with honourable mentions to Zumanjaro and the anticipation of being yanked down El Toro's first drop in basically pitch black.

Best Park Visit: Phantasialand with honourable mentions to every park I went to except those below

Worst Park Visit: Parc Walygator with an honourable mention to Six Flags New England (Just don't like the parks)

Overall Favourite Trip: East Coast Trip

Milestones:

Getting the full collection of operating Mack Bobsleigh Creds
First Morgan Coaster
First Intamin first gen drop tower
First Intamin Impulse Coaster
First Giga and Strata Coasters
World's tallest drop tower
All current B&M Dive Coaster layouts (I think)
First Togo Coaster

 

[Edward M]

I won't do them all, but I will do the ones I can answer!

IN PARK
Best New Cred- Kumba: the most intense coaster I've been on with flawless pacing, intensity, and scenery. A nearly perfect coaster.

Worst New Cred- Gwazi: boring and rough. It does NOTHING.

Most Surprising New Cred- Kumba: I expected an average looper and got one of my favorite rides.

Nastiest Spiting Experience- RMCs (Outlaw and Rattler), Port Aventura (Wild West & Mexico) and Montu: these are the rides that didn't open until about 12:00. I got on them but it was irritating for the preceding 2 or 3 hours.

Best Individual Ride - Outlaw Run or Amazing Adventures of Spiderman: these are my two favorite rides and I love them equally, but for much different reasons. Outlaw is the perfect coaster and Spiderman is the perfect dark ride (if you can call it that).

Worst Individual Ride- Gwazi: as pointed out above.

Craziest Park Experience- I guess my rides on Outlaw Run. It is just so insane.

Scariest Moment- My ride on Shambhala where the lap bar was about 2 inches away from my waist. It was amazing but terrifying.

Best Park Visit- Man, so many good ones. Port Aventura is an unbelievable park with an amazing atmosphere, but the trip was short and had a lack of many coasters. Silver Dollar City was a nearly perfect park experience, much better than my previous visit. However, nothing beats my park experience at Islands of Adventure. It is just an amazing park and I got so many re-rides. I love Universal so much and it was a fantastic day.

Worst Park Visit- um, actually, Busch Gardens Tampa. It just wasn't as good as my other park visits. Then again, I visited my top 6 favorite parks this year (except for Cedar Point). It was a great year, but Busch Gardens just didn't have the vibe of the other parks this year nor did it have a good airtime machine (which I love in a park). It was an amazing park but not on par with the others I've been to this year.

Overall Favorite Trip- my favorite park-centric trip was my trip to Florida for Universal. But my favorite trip of the summer was my trip to Europe. Barcelona is a perfect city, and Lyon was lovely. Port Aventura was just a small part of the trip. It was an amazing trip and great to see more of an amazing continent.

OUT OF PARK
Best Leadup Event- visiting Barcelona was so amazing. Loved it.

Most Suspenseful Moment- I guess the train ride to Port Aventura. Such excitement!

Funniest Moment Outside a Park- Just life at home. Quite funny there.

Coolest Travel Moment- Seeing the Mediterranean for the first time.

Biggest Travel Nightmare- Flying to different countries and continents.

Funniest Travel Moment- My family on a train. It got really funny.

Best Cultural Experience- Spain in general.

BEST PEOPLE:
1. Just the people I encountered in line and on the roller coasters. I like to talk to people on the rides because I am a single rider. Pretty much everyone is very nice and great to talk to.
2. My Dad who is amazing for taking me to all these parks.

WORST PEOPLE:
1. The bad people I actually encountered on the rides. There were some really annoying or rude people on the rides. There were only a few people.
2. Certain Staff members were really rude.

MILESTONES
Ridden all operating B&M Sit Down Loopers (in the same year)
First RMC Hybrid
First Dive Coaster
First time to Spain & Netherlands

 

[Jordanovichy]

Best New Cred: Montu, BGT. Obviously Shambhala gets a worthy mention at is was **** beautiful too.
Worst New Cred: Excluding crappy +1's probably Boomerang at Pleasure Island
Most Surprising New Cred: I'm gonna go with Cheetah Hunt because I was surprised how much I disliked it
Nastiest Spiting Experience: Hmm probably queuing up for Primeval Whirl twice and being made to ride the left side twice. #Burden
Best Individual Ride: Tower of Terror, HS WDW
Worst Individual Ride: Bounce, Oakwood
Craziest Park Experience: The fat boat at Gullivers MK with myself, Stone Cold, Conor and Darren B.
Scariest Moment: Stuck up the Booster at Pleasure Island in strong winds for 30 minutes. Queuing for Waterfall at Oakwood also gets a worthy mention.
Best Park Visit: First visit to Magic Kingdom WDW
Worst Park Visit: My second visit to Chessington of the season
Overall Favorite Trip (Trip = Time between leaving and returning home): Florida 2014, no question.

Best People
You lot of CFers who make visiting the parks (even the awful ones) so very entertaining which is why I love this hobby unconditionally

Worst People
I can think of a couple but that wouldn't be for me to say, nudge nudge wink wink

Milestones
100th cred on Sheikra
150th cred on a Big Apple
Doubling my count for 2 consecutive years
First visits to America, Spain and Wales
Riding my first B&M Hyper
I probably have interesting milestones with my first of other types of coaster but I can't be bothered to work them out

 

[ThomVD]

Best New Cred: Helix, Liseberg. My #1.
Worst New Cred: Stampbanan, Liseberg. My #50 (so my least favorite).
Most Surprising New Cred: Twister in Gröna Lund. Expected it to be alright, ended up being fantastic.
Nastiest Spiting Experience: Insane. Only big ride spite of the season.
Best Individual Ride: The night ride in the front row on Helix.
Worst Individual Ride: I guess the ride on Stampbanan. Nothing wrong with it, but it's just the least exciting coaster.
Scariest Moment: Probably waiting on the top of Katapulten in Gröna Lund. First drop tower experience (aside from Mystery Castle, but that is different).
Best Park Visit: Probably the first day in Liseberg, though my stay in Phantasialand was amazing too, as always. Gröna Lund gets an honourable mention for being a huge surprise!
Worst Park Visit: One of the many visits to the Efteling when my friend and I thought it was a school day, but for some reasons the locals were free and the park was immensely crowded.
Overall Favorite Trip: My Sweden trip. It wasn't really just a theme park trip though. I was there for 3 weeks to visit my friend, but we had 1 long day in Gröna Lund and two days in Liseberg.

FAVORITE CFER MOMENTS:
I met up with TilySlo twice and we went to Drievliet and Walibi Holland together. It was awesome .

BEST PEOPLE:
1. My Swedish Friend. She's an enthusiast too and she's my absolute favorite person to go to theme parks with <3
2. One of my best friends who I go to parks with quite a lot. He's not the biggest enthusiast but we still go to parks often and have a good time.
3. All the incredibly gorgeous and lovely female ride ops in Gröna Lund.

 

[PeskyTrimBrake]

In Park
Best New Cred - Apollos Chariot and Griffon
Worst New Cred - Batwing
Most Surprising New Cred - Verbolten
Nastiest Spiting Experience - Ragin Cajun which opened a day after my visit
Best Individual Ride - Apollos Chariot: Front and Back row
Worst Individual Ride - The Wild One front
Craziest Park Experience - Going up Griffon's lift
Scariest Moment - Experiencing a drop tower for the first time
Best Park Visit - Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Worst Park Visit - Coqui Water Park
Overall Favorite Trip - The only one I made

Out of Park
Best Leadup Event - Attending OBAP Puerto Rico
Most Suspenseful Moment - Waiting for the drop on Mach Tower
Funniest Moment Outside a Park - Seeing this guy from Coaster Crew wearing an Angry Birds hat going crazy as they were opening Griffon
Coolest Travel Moment - Smithsonian Aerospace Museum (BOTH)
Biggest Travel Nightmare - Saying "Terror" at the airport and getting police attention. (I was referring to my face when on the drop tower)
Best Cultural Experience - Going to a family owned Italian restaurant called Giuseppes, having the best pasta I have ever had, meeting the cook and talking about when he visited Puerto Rico, and going to my first REAL diner.

Favorite CFer Moments
None

Best People
- The BGW TOUR GUIDES!

- The Joker Jinx ride op.
OP: "Are you scared? (towards a little girl)
Girl: "Dont make this ride go fast"
OP: Laughs and says "Well thats not how the Joker Jinx works"
LAUNCHES.

Worst People
Waiter at Yorktown restaurant. What a bitch

Milestone
First Drop Tower
First Dive Coaster
First Zierer Coaster
First B&M Stand up
First Premier Coaster


Photo Lookback

 

[Bat Fastard]

Best New Cred- Goliath, SFGAm
Worst New Cred- The Dark Knight Coaster, SFGAm
Most Surprising New Cred- Viper, SFGAm
Nastiest Spiting Experience- S:UF being down constantly, and only being able to ride it once in the course of 4 days at the park
Best Individual Ride- Goliath front row
Worst Individual ride- Dark Knight Coaster, back row
Craziest Park Experience- Seeing a bunch of people run like savages to Goliath as soon as the park opened the gates. Luckily I'm a good runner so I was within the first horde of people and only waited 10 minutes .
Scariest Moment- Goliath's Zero G Stall for the first time
Best Park Visit- Six Flags Great America on a Monday. Everything but Goliath had sub 20 minute waits.
Worst Park Visit- Six Flags St. Louis (Wasn't bad, it's just we went to SFGAm before it, so I was underwhelmed).

Hopefully I'll hookup with you again next year sexy!

 

[Darren B]

My wife has a picture of Darren B above the marital bed to get her excited. - furie

 

[Hutch]

My season just ended a week ago, so I guess this thread is good timing for me.

In Park

Best New Cred - Nemesis
Worst New Cred - Flying Fish is the lowest on my favorites list. But that's just a kiddie cred so I guess X at Thorpe.
Most Surprising New Cred - Colossus at Thorpe. Lot more enjoyable than I expected.
Most Surprising New Ride/Non Coaster - Detonator at Thorpe.
Nastiest Spiting Experience - Only thing that comes to mind is that log flume at Lake Compounce. Forget why it was down.
Best Individual Ride - Boulder Dash in the back row. Honorable mention to Nemesis at full blast and back right seat.
Worst Individual Ride - I guess X at Thorpe Park. It just didn't do anything.
Craziest Park Experience - I'll go with Alton Towers. Lots of great stuff happened like getting lost in the gardens, whoring Nemesis, and Smiler's line!
Scariest Moment - When I thought I'd get beat the **** out of while going through Colossus' cobra and corkscrews.
Best Park Visit - Alton Towers was my favorite park visit for me. Honorable mention for a miracle visit at Thorpe :wink:
Worst Park Visit - Nothing bad really, but I think my least favorite visit was Lake Compounce. I dunno, ride ops weren't as great, some lines were slow, and I was hoping for a lot more rides on Boulder Dash.
Overall Favorite Trip - Europe trip.

Out of Park

Best Leadup Event - Probably my first few days in Europe before Thorpe and Alton
Most Suspenseful Moment - Taking like four different trains the morning I went to Thorpe (subway, Eurostar, etc). I got incredibly anxious and was stressed out.
Funniest Moment Outside a Park - Can't think of one that stood out. I guess I'll go with all the shenanigans that go on in my school dorm.
Coolest Travel Moment - Can't decide on one. Maybe a coupe trains I took that went along the England countryside.
Biggest Travel Nightmare - Waiting in line for customs at Logan Airport when I got back from Europe. Way too many people and only a few staff members actually working at customs, with loads of empty ones. Any ride op I've encountered did a better job than these people.
Funniest Travel Moment - Just my family being all goofy and such (can't think of one that stands out)
Best Cultural Experience (this cultural experience had to have been a sort of sidetrack from credding)

Best People

- A Nemesis ride op who let us ride back row on Nemesis in the afternoon instead of assigning us a different row.
- My mom for putting up with my goonery and taking me to all these parks (normally it's my dad who does the parks with me, but this year it was my mom).

Worst People

There weren't really any bad people or anything. There was only one guy that ticked me off:
- A Boulder Dash ride op who claimed that the ride went 68 mph. He wouldn't listen when I tried to correct him (this actually happened last year too with a different ride op, expect they said BD went 65 mph).

Milestones

First Theme Park Outside the US - Thorpe Park
First Coaster Outside the US - Nemesis Inferno
50th Coaster - Stealth
First Wingrider - Swarm
First Gerstlauer Infinity - Smiler
First Maurer Sohne Spinner - Sonic Spinball
First Gravity Group Woodie - Roar-O-Saurus
Most Rides on a Coaster - Roar-O-Saurus (14)

Thorpe Park


Alton Towers


Lake Compounce


Storyland

 

[rollermonkey]

...

Um, I haven't been to a park in 2014.

I might get to the Puyallup Fair this weekend, but even that's not guaranteed. There is the single credit for me there, not that I'm looking forward to riding another Top Fun Typhoon. Ugh.

Did go on our 4th Disney Cruise, though. Second time to Alaska, for what that's worth.

 

[rollermonkey]

Yay. First coaster since last year August. And while Ranier Rush did indeed suck, it was nowhere near as bad as the one near Naples, IT.

 

[Snoo]

Goliath at SFoG and Banshee at KI. Both rides are incredible.. plus I got to spend a lot of time with friends I don't get to see. <3

 

[Smithy]

Decent thread this Jarret

In Park
Best New Cred - Speed, Oakwood
Worst New Cred - Magnus Colossus, Terra Mitica
Most Surprising New Cred - Speed. Expected roughness, was smooth and enjoyable.
Nastiest Spiting Experience - Kumali closed was annoying as I enjoy it, Drenched broken was meh. Half of Terra Mitica being shut to be split into two parks was bad. But this was even more annoying;

Best Individual Ride - Velocity at the end of the day
Worst Individual Ride - Magnus Colossus shuffle shuffle shuffle
Craziest Park Experience - Terra Mitica being split in half with half of it not open and the other half being expensive and quite sparse of rides and guests
Scariest Moment - Erm....trying to tighten my belt on Megafobia as launching out of my chair cracked my back and ended up undoing it instead
Best Park Visit - Flamingo Land
Worst Park Visit - Oakwood
Overall Favorite Trip - Flamingo Land/Lightwater Valley

Out of Park
Most Suspenseful Moment - Engine management light coming on crossing the Severn with a two hour drive still ahead.
Coolest Travel Moment - Swimming with dolphins.
Biggest Travel Nightmare - Stuck on a transfer with some screeching benefit scrounger (not a random slight, she was bragging) from Liverpool.
Best Cultural Experience - Tour of Lords cricket ground. Wonderful place.

Favorite CFer Moments
Walking into the middle of the group at Billing and just saying hi to Ian before being jumped on by Jordan
Dropslide at Oakwood
Darren B definitely not rubbing in how good the Sweden live was.

I'd have done a photo lookback but going through pictures I've not really got many decent ones at parks. You can settle for an ORP from Magnus Colossus;

kid behind me still cracks me up

 

[CanobieFanatic]

Getting 3 new parks in and 2 new no. 1's.

Leviathan, El Toro, Behemoth, and Apollo's Chariot were the highlight's of my year.